


Displaced

by Lamachine



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Bubbline, F/F, First Meetings, Pre-Bubbline, Pre-Series, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 10:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 47,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamachine/pseuds/Lamachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Ice Kingdom to the Cherry Caverns of Sundae Woods, something is afoot. An old Evil lurks in the shadows, awaiting its revenge, and the unexpected arrival of Marceline Abadeer in the Candy Kingdom might just be exactly what It needed…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well now, that’s not very polite."

Only the sound of the siren roamed the corridors of the castle as Princess Bubblegum left her room in a hurry, putting on a sweater on top of her nightgown while she rushed towards the security room. She crossed path with a few Banana guards who seemed both sleepy and confused, and so she solemnly ordered them to keep their post until further notice. It took her exactly fifty-four seconds to get to the control panels of her newly installed security system – not a personal best. Disappointed, she still managed to focus on the crisis at hand.

She pressed on a complicated series of jellybean buttons before twisting an orange lollipop, successfully unlocking the screen of the console and silencing the alarm. Then, she stared at the green screen, hands on her thighs, her mind quickly interpreting the information given to her. On what probably looked like an indecipherable map to anyone else, she noticed a red sparkle and frowned.

“Go, and regroup your men in the Candy Hall”, Princess Bubblegum ordered to the Banana guard posted at the entrance of the security room. She turned her attention back to the glowing dot as she whispered to herself; “it seems we have an intruder on our hands.”

The leader pushed another series of buttons, locking away the security screen before she left the room and proceeded to meet her army. She feared for the worst as she saw the fatigue in her soldiers’ eyes; the Candy people needed their rest more than most creatures, and being under attack in the middle of the night meant dramatically decreased efficiency. She could only hope the crisis was nothing more than a mere glitch in the system, but somehow it felt unlikely; Princess Bubblegum had created the entire network herself, and she knew it was sound.

Whispers of panic already filled Candy Hall when she arrived; therefore it took several minutes to silence everyone and allow her to address her troops. As she mentally prepared her speech, the pink monarch fought against the feeling that something – _someone_ – was intently watching her. _No time for paranoia_ , she told herself as she cleared her throat.

“Guards! Tonight, the Candy people need you. We are facing a great threat, as I have just been informed that, a few minutes ago, a portal to the Nightosphere has appeared in the vicinity of the castle.”

The information spread a new wave of murmurs and worries through the crowd as the Princess continued.

“Although it was open only for a few seconds, it is very possible that something came through.”

A Banana guard stepped out of the group, awkwardly holding onto his spear.

“Maybe someone left the kingdom to go there”, he suggested. Many other guards naively agreed, their voices becoming a blur as they melted into a flow of impossible explanations for tonight’s events.

The Princess crushed her fist against her palm in a decisive manner, as if ready to lead them into war, successfully regaining her guards’ attention. With a dark voice, not unlike the one she used to tell horror stories to the Marshmallow kids by the camp fire, she stated: “No Candy in their right mind would go to the Nightosphere! They’d melt in a matter of seconds.”

Her answer sent waves of fear across the army’s ranks, but before she could continue, an unknown female voice interrupted her.

“You’re globbin’ right, Princess.”

The Banana guards dispersed themselves in the room, nervously throwing looks everywhere in hopes of locating the origin of the voice. As they turned around and searched their horizontal perimeters, the pink royalty instinctively raised her head, her eyes locking onto dark orbs that seemed to pierce through her soul. She shivered, congratulated herself that she had put a sweater on earlier and, after what seemed an eternity, finally opened her mouth.

“Who are you”, she asked defiantly.

Above her, the greyish silhouette hovered, its identity protected by the shadows of the night. The Princess cursed herself, for she should have invented of a better way to light up Candy Hall by now; surely there were too many places where a creature could hide in this castle, and she would definitely have to think of a way to increase security in that regard. In the meantime, though, she would also have to deal with this intruder herself, it seemed, as her guards had started to panic, regrouping against the walls in terror.

The creature slowly floated down in the empty circle that had formed in the middle of the crowd, seemingly triumphant as she smiled to the pink monarch.

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know”, the girl enigmatically answered. Now that she bathed in the moonlight, Bubblegum could see that the intruder was, in fact, a girl not much older than herself. Relieved, she took one step forward and crossed her arms in front of her, as if she was not impressed by the other teen’s stunt.

“You crossed over from the Nightosphere”, the Princess spoke, her mind trying to unfold the situation laid in front of her. “What do you want?”

The question was meant as an olive branch, an honest and simple way to inquire about the intentions of the stranger. Instead, the words rushed out of the Princess’ mouth with intent of their own, and in the dead silence of Candy Hall, sounded incredibly rude. The pink girl blamed the lack of sleep, really. It had a direct effect on her diplomatic abilities; she would have to study it sometime.

“Well now, that’s not very polite. Aren’t you supposed to be hospitable, and offer your guest a good meal and a night’s rest?”

There was something about the way the stranger toyed with the word _meal_ that made every guard in the room shiver, despite the girl’s non-threatening appearance.

“Where are your manners, Princess?”

As she spoke, the dark figure transformed itself, gaining height and upper muscles as its face twisted, eyes glowing with red. A few Banana guards screamed in horror as they rushed to the windows and jumped outside, running for their lives through the sleeping streets of the Candy kingdom.

“You’re a demon”, Bubblegum tried, her scientific mind suddenly very intrigued by her visitor, although she still remained entirely focused on the threat the creature currently presented.

“Half-demon”, the figure replied with a strange voice, darker than the one it had before. “But don’t worry; I’m not here to suck out your souls.”

The intruder winked at the princess, sending a shiver down her spine and reminding her of the way the creature had suggested having _a good meal_. If there was something that her people were known for, more than any other race on Ooo – apart from humans, of course – it was being tasty.

“What do you want”, Bubblegum questioned again, taking another step forward, hoping to send the message that she wasn’t intimidated by the creature, even though her own army appeared paralyzed by fear.

“A girl’s gotta crash somewhere”, the grey stranger shrugged as she studied her surroundings. “This castle’s gonna do the trick.”

Princess Bubblegum threw her arms up in the air and waved, as if trying to get the creature’s attention.

“Hey! This is _my_ castle, _my_ home! You’re not welcomed here!”

Her protest was only met with a long laugh as the tall, dark creature grabbed a Banana guard, picking it up as if a flower in a garden. She held him between two fingers, balancing him from left to right, and back again, like he was nothing else than a mere toy.

“I do whatever I want”, the stranger replied before she started to playfully throw the guard from one hand to the other. “Get out, or I’m going to eat every last one of your subjects.”

When the Princess did not budge, the creature opened her mouth, dangling her prisoner right above it.

“Alright, alright”, the pink monarch shouted. “We’re leaving.”

The half-demon laughed again, the prisoner still secured in her grasp as the cavalry ran away, barely listening as the Princess ordered them to leave at once. In the middle of their chaotic escape, the pink monarch remained still, her hands on her thighs, staring at the intruder disapprovingly.

“What”, the creature asked with annoyance as it slowly retracted into its original form.

“Let him go”, the Princess ordered in a calm, decisive voice.

“Like I would eat _that_ anyway”, the girl answered as she let her prisoner fall onto the ground. He ran away the second he touched the floor, so terrorized that he did not think about looking back to his sovereign, even as he abandoned her behind, alone with the evil creature.

In the empty Candy Hall, under the pale moonlight, both girls stared at each other for a few seconds before Princess Bubblegum started to walk towards the exit. The sound of her footsteps echoed on the walls as she passed beside the intruder, her shoulder hitting her along the way; one last gesture of resilience.

“I’ll be back”, the pink monarch declared when she reached the door, her words being met with another confident laugh that somehow sounded warmer this time.

“I don’t doubt that, Princess.” 


	2. Gathering Intelligence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No, that’s not very good..."

Truth be told, rarely in the Candy kingdom history had the Candy people seen their princess in such a strange apparel; wearing an old pink sweater over her nightgown, she had a pair of black binoculars hanging from her neck and a green backpack on her shoulders. Riding on Lady Rainicorn’s back, she flew over her beloved citizens without even noticing their presence, her mind focused on the task at hand.

After her encounter with the creature from the Nightosphere, she had not dared ask for refuge from one of her loyal subjects, fearing she would cause too much panic should they know the truth: that the Candy kingdom was now occupied by an evil fiend she knew nothing about. And therefore she had spent the previous night in Lady’s stable, more or less sleeping, using her insomnia to plan out how she would regain control over her castle.

As soon as the sun had rose, they left the warmth of the stable to fly away in the cold morning’s sky, seeking allies against their new enemy. Despite being a smoothie, the Princess had managed to get help from the Lumpy Space royalty – it helped that she had become friends with their daughter over the course of the years. As they had no weapons or army to begin with, the Lumpy Space people simply offered spying gear, which was exactly what Bubblegum was after. She was not one to go into battle unprepared, and since she had no information on the powers and weaknesses of the creature, she had to study the specimen first-hand before laying out a plan of attack.

Partially hidden behind a tower, the Princess and Lady had found a window through which they could observe the intruder, although they remained too far to actually understand what she was doing in there.

“We need to get closer”, Bubblegum insisted once again as she held onto Lady with one arm, her other hand firmly holding the binoculars. The rainicorn protested briefly but still managed to shift her position, bringing them slightly nearer to the castle walls.

“Perfect”, the pink monarch whispered, as if she was worried the creature inside could hear her. She let go of her binoculars to take out the listening device LSP’s parents had lent her, suddenly wondering if her friend had previously used that machine to pry on her the very same way she was about to spy on the strange girl that had taken over her home. She decided it was best not to know as she placed the horn towards the castle’s window, adjusting the frequency so that she could hear what was going on inside.

Putting on the ear buds, she grabbed the black binoculars once more, watching as the dark silhouette roamed around the room with her back turned. The Princess jiggled the numerous buttons of the long-range device, hoping her ears could tell her more than her eyes did. Finally, she found the right combination of frequency and heard a female voice. The creature seemed to be speaking to herself, but her intonation was very strange. Bubblegum adjusted once again the sound variations and the volume until finally, the speech became more intelligible.

It took her only a few seconds to understand that what she was hearing was not a mere monologue; it was, in fact, a song.

 

“ _And if Ooo is not it, then what can it be_

_There is just no place left there for me_

_Half-demons don’t make any friends that’s a fact_

_And vampires just leave them dead in their tracks_

– No, that’s not very good...”

 

Princess Bubblegum was startled by the lyrics, as she had suspected the creature held vampiric abilities, but couldn’t confirm it yet – that fact would also mean the grey girl was likely to suffer from the same weaknesses, and that would be a big lead. When Lady asked her if she could hear something, the monarch didn’t reply; instead she increased the volume of her device, hoping to catch another useful clue. For a few minutes, she simply heard the same lines over and over again, with different tones accompanying them, and through her binoculars, she could see that the creature was holding a red guitar – or was it a bass guitar? She could not see from afar.

She was on the verge of giving up when the intruder suddenly let go of her instrument and moved deeper inside the room. Through the ear buds, the Princess heard a yawn, followed by a long silence and a strange sound. Never one to argue with momentum, she let go of her binoculars, held tighter to her friend and ordered her to position herself underneath the window sill. Although she was worried, Lady trusted Bubblegum more than anything, and so she obeyed in a brisk movement, maneuvering them both incredibly close to the enemy.

Bravely, Princess Bubblegum got herself up on her feet, standing up on her friend’s back and stabilizing herself by holding onto the castle’s exterior wall. With her precarious sense of balance – they were flying after all –, she managed to pull herself up enough to peek inside the room. There, she saw the thin grey girl holding up one of the pink royal cushions, her teeth firmly planted in it as the color was seemingly drained out of the fabric. She gasped again and quickly fell back onto Lady Rainicorn who automatically understood that it was their cue to get out of there.

A few seconds later, the creature reached the window and looked outside, but no one remained to be seen. She rapidly retreated inside to hide from the sun, unaware that, a few meters above her head, a Princess was forming a plan to chase her out of her castle, once and for all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Since there were so many secret entrances and paths to her castle that even Peppermint Butler didn’t know about, the Princess was very confident that the vampire hadn’t found out the existence of Bubblegum’s laboratory. It took her a while to convince Lady to follow her inside, though – not only her friend was uncomfortable between walls, she was also still frightened by how they had almost been caught by the creature. Still, when the pink monarch explained her plan, she could not argue anymore, and thus, she found herself flying indoors, terrified of making a noise that would alert the vampire of their presence.

In Bubblegum’s lab, Science rejoiced from seeing her alive and well – the mouse had heard the commotion of the previous night, but had been stuck in its cage, waiting to know what happened. It gladly offered its paws to the cause as the Princess laid out the schematics for a new weapon. Awkwardly floating in the corner, Lady Rainicorn watched in silence while the two brains worked their magic.

It took several hours for the first prototype to be ready for a test, and when it exploded in the Princess’ hands, all three of them thought that it was over. However, a few minutes went by without any noise coming from the castle, which could mean only one of two things: either the vampire was sleeping, or she was gone. Somehow, the pink monarch felt the latter was completely terrifying, as even though none of her loyal subjects had blood, most of them were colored in different shades of red. Princess Bubblegum didn’t know if the process of having one’s color removed was painful or not, nor if it was deadly, but it sure didn’t sound too good.

Finally, the experiment seemed successful enough to be tested within real-life parameters, and even though Lady Rainicorn insisted that someone else take care of it, the Princess knew she had to complete her plan herself. She placed her glasses on her forehead and grabbed the weapon.

“Locked and loaded.”


	3. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If Marceline’s heart was still alive, she knew it would’ve skipped a beat."

Marceline didn’t need a bed to sleep in, and still, it felt more natural to hover above one than to hang from the ceiling, as some vampires did. In the centuries and lands she had journeyed through, many of her habits changed now and then, but never had she stopped sleeping in or above a bed. Her father used to say she was too human for her own good, and maybe he was right, but at least, she was exactly who she wanted to be: herself.

Therefore, when she was done stuffing her stomach with red, _courtesy of the Candy kingdom thank you very much_ , she found the nearest bed and allowed herself to drift out of consciousness on top of the pink sheets. She could not have found a better place to crash than this palace; the entire castle looked like a vampire all-you-can-eat buffet, and even the walls could sustain her if necessary. She sighed with contempt as her mind filled with nonsensical dreams about a princess made of bubble gum and bananas dancing to the sound of her music.

She awoke hours later with a tingling sensation running up her left arm. Protesting against the early morning, she groaned and stubbornly kept her eyes closed while the feeling increased until it became more akin to a burn. Ever since she had arrived in the Candy kingdom, her vampiric sense of smell could only detect a strong scent of sugar – no, not sugar, but something _sugary_ – and so, she couldn’t count on her nose to inform her of what was going on. She growled as she fell onto the bed’s surface, having realised exactly what the sensation on her skin was: direct sunlight.

Not understanding how it could possibly be – she had chosen to sleep in a guest bedroom without any windows to avoid this exact situation – she opened her eyes. It did not help much, as she was blinded by a powerful light emerging from the door entrance.

“What the fluff?” she asked as she covered herself with a blanket, quickly leaving the bed to retreat to a darkened corner of the room. “What is that thing?”

In the few seconds it took for the light to follow her, Marceline distinguished a silhouette standing in the doorway, holding what seemed to be a laser gun made out of candy. Blinded again, she raised the blanket over her head, her fingers burning as she tried to get a better hold of the fabric.

“I don’t usually name my inventions so casually, but Science suggested I call this a _sun-in-a-gun_ ”, a female voice replied. The vampire recognized it as the Princess’ voice and cursed herself for underestimating the rapidity and effectiveness of her retribution. “What do you think?”

“Ouch! Stop that, you freak”, Marceline yelled as she grabbed every small object in her reach, throwing everything she could towards the Princess. None of her improvised projectiles met with the intended target, which only served to strengthen the monarch’s resolve. Therefore she held her ground, her weapon proving to be even more effective than her most optimistic predictions.

“What’s that? Is my castle not cosy enough for you”, the princess nagged, thrilling on power as she increased the strength of the light ray, causing another hiss of pain from her victim.

“Alright, alright I get it”, the vampire surrendered with a sigh. “I’ll leave your stupid place.”

“Yes, yes you will”, the Princess replied with a cold voice before she turned off her device. She kept the gun aimed at Marceline, her finger tensed over the trigger as her severe pink face stared intently. After a few seconds of reprieve, the grey figure slowly let down her blanket, her eyes blinking as her retinas adjusted to the darkened room. The sheet still firmly held in her fists, she threw one desperate look to her right; against the wall, close to the bed, laid a red bass guitar and a blue travel bag.

“You will leave that here; as it belongs to me now. So are the spoils of war”, the princess firmly declared before emitting an awful clichéd evil laugh.

“Dude, seriously?”

“Yeah I’m serious. Now, get out.”

As the pink monarch tightened her grasp around the weapon, the vampire decided it was best to retreat for now – surely an all-you-can-eat buffet wasn’t worth that much trouble. She let go of the blanket and quickly flew out of the room, her long dark hair brushing against the Princess’ arm as she passed by. Marceline didn’t think to look back as she rushed out of the castle and through the night, waiting to be entirely out of the Candy kingdom before she burst into a deep, joyful laughter.

It had been decades since she had met anyone who so bravely fought back her petty crimes; perhaps this Princess wouldn’t be such a bore after all. Maybe, just maybe, Marceline had finally found someone worth competing with.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She waited a few days before adventuring again over the walls of the Candy kingdom. Completely invisible, she flew across town just after sundown, observing the market place in the early evening, the constant buzzing of living creatures, going about their lives in blissful ignorance. As an immortal being, Marceline had all the time in the world, and so she could not understand how the Candy people would chose to waste their existence with so many ordinary, tedious concerns like shopping and chatting with friends.

If she knew she was going to die in a few years, Marceline would travel across Ooo on the most perilous adventures; engage herself in the most hazardous quests. Then, on the last month, she would barricade herself inside a house and write songs about everything that had happened to her, from her birth to her last breath. There were so many things she wanted to sing about, so many sights she had never shared… Truly, the vampire could not understand how anyone alive would not desire to lead the greatest of lives.

It was while musing with that thought that she caught sight of her target; a few meters ahead, behind an outside counter set up for the occasion, Princess Bubblegum was busy pouring cups of hot cocoa to her citizens. It had been a rough week for her people, as Marceline had gathered from rumors spread around the land of Ooo. Shortly after the castle had been sieged by a demon from the Nightosphere – her own evil doing, she congratulated herself –, a Door Lord had robbed most of the town’s ice cream supplies.

The monarch offered a kind word to every citizen around her, all the while being unknowingly observed by an invisible vampire hovering above her head. Although she was not usually one to make plans, Marceline had decided that it wouldn’t hurt to get a better idea of her opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Now that she was here, though, she couldn’t stop wondering if the princess’ words and actions were sincere, or if she was more akin to her subjects – simply going through the motions, leading a common life and obeying to a daily routine.

She didn’t get enough time to reach a conclusion as Bubblegum suddenly raised her head, her piercing eyes looking right through her. Startled, Marceline flew a few meters backwards, holding her hand in front of her mouth in stupor as the pink monarch blinked several times before she returned her gaze to her citizens.

If Marceline’s heart was still alive, she knew it would’ve skipped a beat.

Really, this Princess could present a challenge, the half-demon thought as she decided to retreat into the darkness of the woods. The mere idea brought a smile to her lips while she picked up a few red berries on the way, lazily floating around before choosing to sit on a tree branch. She indolently sucked the color out of the fruits and promised herself to go back to the castle the following night.

Somehow, she couldn’t wait to butt heads with Princess Bubblegum again.


	4. The Unusual Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are impossible, Marceline!"

It had been a while since she last sneaked into a bedroom through a window, but Marceline was glad to see that she hadn’t lost the touch. She had barely made a sound as she closed it behind her, and as she hovered above the bed in her invisible state, she happily noticed that the princess was still safely tucked under her covers, fast asleep. The vampire smiled as she watched the pink sheets wave with the sway of the young monarch’s breath before she turned her attention towards the rest of the room.

Surrounded by the Princess’ belongings, it caught her attention in a matter of seconds: there, beside a desk, her guitar rested against the wall. Happy as she was to be rejoined with her precious possession, the vampire didn’t think twice about grabbing it, instantly firing up the trap that had been laid out for her. Her movement cut a tiny string that set about a strange-looking device above Marceline’s head. In a matter of seconds, the rug beneath her slid to the side, releasing a puddle of a strange pink mixture that automatically attached itself to the vampire’s feet before flying across the air until it crashed against the ceiling.

The sudden course of events caught Marceline off guard, returning her to her visible state while she hung upside-down, firmly glued in place. The more she struggled to unstuck herself, the more the pink bubble-gum-like substance spread up her body, stretching itself and holding on even tighter. As she was busy trying to figure out what had just happened to her, the vampire didn’t notice the princess rising from her bed with a smile.

“Ha-ha” she exclaimed triumphantly, pushing off her bed sheets and rising to her feet.

“Let me go, you creep” Marceline angrily replied as she tried to transform into an enormous beast. The strange pink matter reacted immediately, crawling onto her until it reached her underarms, its pressure growing. Understanding that she was making things worst, the grey girl returned to her usual humanoid form and stopped moving, which released a bit of the pressure around her legs and ankles.

“You come into my room in the middle of the night and I’m the creep” Bubblegum questioned, raising one eyebrow as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“You – you stole my guitar” the vampire protested while she struggled to point an accusing finger towards the pink monarch.

“And you invaded my castle”, the princess answered in a poised and serious voice.

A few seconds of silence followed as both girls stared at each other defiantly.

“I like to think that I simply let myself in”, the half-demon stated calmly, breaking eye contact all the while unknowingly mirroring the princess’ position; arms crossed.

The pink royalty replied with an annoyed sigh and what sounded like a pinch of amusement; “you are impossible, Marceline!”

The use of her forename surprised the undead teenager and caught her once again off guard. She uncrossed her arms, puzzled. A note of uncertainty tainted her voice; “how do you know my name?”

Her question was met with a long silence while Bubblegum walked around her prisoner, dropping out of her sight. The vampire focused on the sound of her foot steps to track her progress across the room, but still, she was startled when she heard the princess’ voice again, this time coming from behind her.

“A good princess knows about a lot of things”, she answered cryptically. The young monarch reappeared in Marceline’s sight, holding onto her red guitar. “Also…”, the girl continued as she turned the instrument around, revealing a black and white sticker that read ‘ _Marceline’s property: back off!_ ’.

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that”, the vampire replied, rubbing her right hand on the nape of her neck, as if she tried to hide her embarrassment.

Contented to see that her prisoner was starting to be more reasonable, the pink monarch pulled herself a chair and sat a few meters across her, leaving the guitar on the top of her bed.

“So, why don’t you tell me why you’re here”, she suggested, as if it were an ice-breaker in a diplomatic discussion. The serious tone annoyed Marceline, who grimaced before she answered that, as she had previously stated, she simply wanted to have her instrument back.  The response – and the eye roll that had accompanied it – caused the princess to sigh before she insisted.

“No, not here in the castle, I mean _here_ …”, she gestured a lot, throwing her arms up above her head, as if trying to embrace the sky, “out of the Nightosphere.”

The question triggered a pinch of hurt in Marceline’s stomach, and she quickly hid her initial reaction with a frown. “None of your business, Princess”, she stubbornly replied.

The slight pain she had felt rapidly escalated into anger as the pink monarch insisted again; “I’m not releasing you until you tell me.”

“Then I’ll get out”, the vampire opposed with a childlike wrath; after all, she wasn’t in a very good bargaining position, although she hadn’t seemed to notice. The princess decided to remind her as she reached for something under her bed.

“Let me rephrase that”, Bubblegum offered while she pulled out her newest invention. Marceline automatically reacted upon seeing the weapon, remembering the burnt on her arms and fingers that had taken hours to heal.

“Woa woa, ease up”, she gestured as she spoke, as if moving her arms around could prove just how defenseless she actually was. Her movements caused her to rock back and forth, unwillingly swinging at the end of her bubble-gum rope.

At the sight of the dangling vampire, the princess started to giggle, which brought a smile to Marceline’s face even as she struggled with her own desire to laugh.

“You think it’s funny?” The grey girl’s grin widened as her interrogation caused another burst of uncontrollable laughter.

“It’s a little funny”, Bubblegum admitted while she tried to regain control of herself, but her eyes crossed with the vampire’s and they both broke into an irrepressible laughter, as if they had been old friends, sharing a joke without speaking a word. It took a few minutes before they regained their calm; the princess settling more comfortably in her chair, weapon on her lap as Marceline stretched her arms.

“Seriously though, you’ll have to let me go”, the vampire said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She then closed her eyes, yawning loudly as she pretended to fall asleep.

“We’ll see about that”, Bubblegum replied, fighting against her own urge to rest.

A few minutes later, Marceline opened her eyes to find a sleeping princess, curled up in her chair, and she smiled as she noticed once again the waving of her chest, the constant up-and-down of her breath running through her lungs. It didn’t take long after that for her to fall asleep, and both girls dreamt peacefully while the weapon on the princess’ lap slid slowly to the ground.

No one heard the soft noise it made as it fell on the floor.


	5. The Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Isn’t it obvi? I’m busting you out”

Marceline woke up when her head hit the ground, the rest of her body quickly following in an ungraceful manner. A strange nausea overcame her senses as she remained uncertain of where she was or what was happening. It took a few seconds for her instincts to kick in, and even then, her drained muscles responded slowly to commands. When she finally got to her feet, she noticed her opponent already had a hold of the sun-in-a-gun.

“What the glob?”

The scene that played out in front of her didn’t make much sense; a small round-shaped white candy with red stripes and wearing a blue suit stood on top of a ladder, holding a beaker in one hand and the weapon in the other. The stranger let go of the empty glass, and it shattered on the floor as she looked around, finding the Princess still sound asleep in her chair. The vampire then returned her focus to the Candy guy, which was slowly stepping down the ladder, and wondered if she recognized him from somewhere. She knew it was impossible, as there had been no diplomatic or even undiplomatic relations between the Nightosphere and any Ooo kingdoms in many centuries, and yet, something about him seemed oddly familiar.

“Isn’t it obvi? I’m busting you out.”

Although she understood every word the annoyed voice spoke, she still couldn’t make sense of what was happening. As if she was trying to find a clue in her surroundings, she examined the room around her, spotting the presence of a pink, jelly-like substance that had been projected onto everything in the room, from the ceiling to the floor. Looking down to her clothes, she noticed she was also covered in it. She grabbed a piece of the goo between two fingers and it rapidly dissolved into a sticky liquid. Puzzled, she raised her head and met with the white eyes of the stranger.

“Why?”

“Let’s just say your dad and I go way back”, the little candy man said, lowering the gun as if he suddenly trusted Marceline. The vampire felt a pinch of betrayal at the mention of her father, which rapidly grew in a full-blown anger.

“He can’t know I’m here”, she ordered firmly, and wished – as many times before – that her voice didn’t sound so youthful. She understood the request was useless; Hunson Abadeer had loyal informants everywhere in the world of Ooo. So many dark souls remained faithful to the evil entities sent to that realm that her dad could have eyes and ears on every political event without ever having to leave his dimension. Although there was no way for her to fall entirely off his grid, Marceline had foolishly believed that the Candy kingdom was filled only with pure, untainted souls; and had apparently been very wrong at that.

“Hmm”, the small guy seemed to be deep into thinking as he scratched the side of his head. “Maybe he doesn’t have to know.”

Marceline frowned again, waiting for an explanation. How would anyone defy her father’s will – aside herself, of course? Annoyed by the stranger’s silence and the entire situation she had woken up into, she sighed deeply. That candy was truly playing with her nerves.

“My first loyalty is to the Princess and this kingdom. If you leave now and don’t come back, your father doesn’t need to learn about any of this.”

Even though she strongly felt that it was a bad decision, Marceline did not want to risk her father getting a hold of her. She sent one look towards the sleeping princess before she grabbed her bag and her guitar in one swift movement. As she floated to the window, a soft moan grabbed her attention and she turned around, realising that Princess Bubblegum was starting to wake up. She hesitated; somehow, it felt wrong to leave without a proper goodbye.

“You have to go now”, the little guy insisted, pointing the gun towards her once again.

He didn’t have to ask twice, because Marceline quickly opened the window and stepped out, flying into the end of the night in a dark blue sky.

A few minutes later, Princess Bubblegum woke up freezing, uncomfortably positioned on her pink desk chair. She crossed her arms as if trying to find some warmth, but both limbs rapidly fell to her side as soon as she opened her eyes. The sight was seemingly unreal; standing in the middle of her bedroom, where all walls and furniture appeared partially covered by a pink slime, Peppermint Butler stood, out of breath, holding onto her latest invention. The vampire she had captured was nowhere to be seen, and as she instinctively looked behind her, she noticed the guitar and the blue travel bag were also gone. The window had been left open, and from it a cold breeze reached her, sending shivers down her spine.

“She escaped, Princess. I came here as quickly as I could, but it was too late”, the candy explained, gesturing widely with both arms, emphasizing his defeat.

“It’s okay, Peps”, the pink monarch answered with a sigh. As she stood up, she felt suddenly so dizzy that she sat down again, holding her head to her hands. “What happened?”

“I heard quite the tantrum, and so I came running, but she was already gone”, Peppermint continued, letting go of the weapon and reaching his ruler’s side. “She must’ve put you under a sleep spell; vampires tend to do that.”

“Hmm”, Bubblegum started speaking as she rose to her feet once again. “I didn’t know they could.”

She crossed the room in a few paces and closed the window before returning to her desk. She threw away a piece of pink jelly hanging from its side, opened the top drawer and pulled out her notepad.

“It’s fascinating.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Marceline flew away in the early morning, uncertain of where to go next. There were so many places in Ooo that had been her home; the lake caves where she had held so many parties, the old dungeon she had transformed into a stage, her small cabin in the badlands… Still, it felt as if none of those houses seemed right. While she realised that, for now at least, she simply didn’t want to be alone, she took a quick turn left and hoped she had enough time before the sun came up to get where she wanted to go. It took her only twenty minutes to reach the desired destination, but she could already feel the distinct blister of sunshine on her skin when she knocked on the large wooden door.

She snuck inside as soon as it opened, briskly passing by a servant in a green suit, unwillingly causing him to lose his balance and sending him flying to the floor.

“Yeeees?”

The cashew butler joyfully greeted her with his usual welcome phrase although he had fallen a few meters away from the entrance, as if he had barely noticed the vampire’s rude arrival.

“Sorry Lisby”, Marceline apologised as she urgently closed the door behind her. She then walked over to him, offering the butler her hand to get him back to his feet. As she pulled him up, a familiar voice screamed in happiness and surprise from the other side of the large room.

“Marceline!”

The young royalty rapidly rushed out of his throne to meet her at the door, arms wide open.

“Hey Duke, what’s up?”


	6. The Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I didn't do nothing."

“I… It… It was so dark and _mean_ …”

The Green Gumdrop stuttered and cried in the remains of his living room. Most furniture had been broken and the house, thoroughly ransacked, barely held any place left for Princess Bubblegum and her two Banana guards. They stood amongst the debris in silence for a few seconds, waiting for the candy to retrieve his calm. Seeing as it wouldn’t happen for a while, the pink monarch sighed and sent another look around the room.

“Did it say anything else?”, the Princess questioned, trying to hide her lack of empathy. She was usually better at it, but it _was_ the middle of the night and she _had_ been disturbed mid-experiment. Also, Green Gumdrop had been crying ever since they had gotten there a half hour ago, and so he had drained all the patience she could possibly muster at the moment. “Any detail would help.”

“Just that it wanted red things”, the Candy repeated, throwing desperate looks at his leader, tears running down his face. “What am I going to do?”

Containing another sigh, the pink monarch instructed her guards to escort Green Gumdrop to her castle immediately, where he would be safe until his house could be repaired. In the meanwhile, she promised she would remain behind and continue with her investigation. When they left, the girl returned her focus to the chaos she found herself into, trying to make sense of all this mess.

All witnesses described the thief as a tall and dark creature that could magically appear out of nowhere. According to all accounts, all four crimes were committed merely in the same fashion; the robber grabbed every red object they could find in their path and then destroyed pretty much everything that remained in the room before they vanished. The creature didn’t speak much, didn’t ask for anything else and seemed to be only interested in the color of the stolen goods – not their value, weight, texture or emotional significance. Tonight was their fourth attack, and so, Princess Bubblegum knew there was no way to avoid the truth any longer: every clue she found pointed towards Marceline.

She sighed, looking around the room one last time from the threshold before she returned to the cold and cloudy night. On the way back to her castle, she kept her hands in her pockets, desperate for some warmth as her mind ran through the past events again.

A dark, tall creature with seemingly magical abilities, and that craved for the color red; obviously, a vampire was behind all this. Then again, Ooo didn’t have a lot of vampire citizens as of late, and it couldn’t be a coincidence that one had stirred trouble in her kingdom only weeks ago; by all things logical and mathematical, the person responsible simply had to be Marceline. There was one thing that didn’t seem to add up, though, and the detail bothered Bubblegum more than she would care to admit: every single witness had described the creature as _mean_.

If there was something she couldn’t see Marceline as, it was mean.

Self-involved, careless, immature, maybe; but where evil was concerned, the vampire seemed to be putting on a show more than anything else, and didn’t appear to be so much of a threat. It had been on this hypothesis that the Princess had rested her decision not to send any Banana guards after her, when she had escaped from her gooey trap – even though she still couldn’t figure out how Marceline had managed to pull such a trick, and it was truly getting on her nerves when she thought about it. A few weeks had went by since then and everyday had proved to Bubblegum that she had made the right choice; that was, until the thefts began.

All of that didn’t really matter now, though, since there were too many clues pointing to Marceline; the Princess knew that she was left with no choice but to arrest her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“There is no need for this confrontation”, the pink monarch spoke firmly in her megaphone, surrounded by her own little army. “Tell your men to stand down.”

There was no immediate response as the Peanut guards stood still, their spears pointed towards the intruders, ready to pierce banana skins. In front of Bubblegum, the Banana guards had formed a half-circle, trying to protect their leader despite being obviously outnumbered. The girl cursed herself for not having brought more soldiers along, but how could she predict such a crisis? Even as she was trying to resolve the situation, she could not believe the chaos she found herself in.

She had arrived only a half hour before, and things had gotten out of hand very quickly. After being asked by the Duke – quite impolitely, she might add – to state the reason from her impromptu visit, she had been requested to exit the Duchy of Nuts immediately. She had refused, of course, to leave without the one she had come to arrest, stating that she had proof that the criminal in question was being harbored within the castle’s walls. As she felt within her royal rights to insist, she had knocked once again on the heavy wooden door, and upon that gesture it had finally opened; only to release an army of Peanut guards that had forced the Princess and her own soldiers to retreat.

Bubblegum had heard several rumors, while she searched for Marceline’s hideout, saying that the Duke had quite an infatuation for the vampire, although she had no idea of the lengths he would go to in order to protect her. Somehow, it wasn’t very surprising that a twelve-year-old boy with a crush wouldn’t exactly be the most logical person in Ooo, and yet, she hadn’t expected such resistance. _Way too young to rule anything_ , the Princess thought, but she had no word in this.

All she could do was to try and defuse this situation before it exploded before her eyes.

“She’s not guilty of any crimes and besides, your guards don’t have jurisdiction here”, the Duke angrily screamed from a castle tower, barely aware of the trouble he was in. Behind him, the Princess noticed a dark shadow that quickly passed by, but it didn’t remain still long enough for her to determine if it was Marceline or not.

“Then why don’t you let me talk to her”, the Princess asked again through her megaphone, hoping her impatience wasn’t showing. She didn’t have time for this reckless ruler and his childish behavior; she had a case to solve and a thief to send to the Candy dungeon. “Just to clear things up.”

The boy disappeared from the window, and for a few minutes, the courtyard became silent as the guards from both sides remained perfectly still, awaiting orders. For a second, the Princess believed he had finally come to his senses, and that he had realised he could not jeopardize an entire peace treaty over a teenage crush. When he returned to his post, though, panicked and in tears, she knew she had, once again, been too optimistic.

“We stand for justice! We stand for justice!”

He started chanting repeatedly, the words quickly traveling amongst the ranks of his army who joined in the screams, to which Princess Bubblegum responded with a simple, yet effective, face palm. Was he really willing to go at war over this? She sighed deeply as she threw away her megaphone and lifted the sleeves of her sweater; if they were going to fight, she would not hesitate to jump in.

As both sides prepared for the worst, they had kept the wooden door unguarded, and so it came as a shock to everyone there when the bolts exploded under pressure, sending scrapes of metal and wood all around. While soldiers ducked the debris, a dark figure advanced upon the field, floating above the ground mysteriously. A rumor of fear ran amongst the two armies’ ranks as the creature reached them slowly, and amidst a silence filled with angst, its voice rose loud and clear.

“I surrender”, Marceline formally proclaimed as she stood still, hovering above the frightened soldiers, her face serious as her eyes filled with resolve. In a matter of seconds, she landed on the ground in front of Bubblegum, who had merely time to blink before the vampire held out both her hands and winked. “Or whatevs.”

The pink monarch grabbed the cuffs that had been dangling from her waist and wrapped them around Marceline’s wrists, her fingers brushing against the vampire’s cold skin, tentative as if she still couldn’t believe what was happening. Relief overcame her senses as she realised the situation had finally been defused, and that her army could now stand down. She ordered her Banana guards to do so before she sent a look towards the castle’s window, from which the Duke still stared, devastated.

“Thank you”, the Princess muttered to Marceline, although she kept her eyes on the young boy. She sighed one last time before she turned around, ready to leave.

“I’ll be fine, D”, the vampire yelled at the Duke as she started walking away, obediently following Bubblegum and her guards towards the Candy kingdom.

She traveled quietly for the most part of the trip, feeling uneasy that anyone would be eager to wage a war for her freedom. That was why, she thought, she should always remain on her own; people were so easily swayed one way or another, and so incapable of tuning together their reason and their heart. She sighed as the Candy kingdom came into sight, its pink towers elevated against the landscape ahead. Somehow, she couldn’t stop herself from speaking with the low voice of a sulking child;

“I didn’t do nothing.”

For a few seconds, she believed her protest had not been heard, and she was perfectly at peace with that possibility – she felt ridiculous for saying anything at this point, really. She was almost startled when Princess Bubblegum suddenly appeared on her right side, her pink eyes staring onto the horizon. Marceline could barely believe her ears when she heard the soft confession;

“I know.”


	7. Candy Jail Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you mean, 'you know'?”

Only the sound of the Banana guards’ footsteps echoed in the long corridor that connected the Candy Dungeon to the rest of the castle. Princess Bubblegum looked as they walked away, her fingers mindlessly playing with the keys that hanged from her belt. Tired, she had almost forgotten why she was there when a voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

“What do you mean, _you know_?”

Sitting on the small wooden bench at the back of her cell, Marceline had kept both her eyes on the Princess ever since she had entered the jail, waiting for the right moment to ask the question that had been burning her lips for hours now. She heard from afar a loud door closing on itself and bolts being secured in place, and for a moment she wondered if it had been a trick to get her to come quietly; if the Princess had successfully gained her trust only to betray her moments later.

“I know you’re not the thief.”

Bubblegum’s exhausted voice barely reached Marceline’s ears, but they caused an immediate reaction none the less. The vampire stood up quickly and walked the few meters to reach the gate of her cell, her hands wrapping themselves around the cold bars of the jail door.

“Then why am I globbin’ here?!”, she yelled, shaking the bars as if she was trying to escape, even though she truly wasn’t; that cell was no match for her, and if she wanted out, she could be back in the night’s sky within a matter of minutes.

The Princess sighed as she moved closer to her prisoner, letting go of the keys as one hand rested on the bars next to Marceline’s.

“Can you prove it?”, she asked, staring directly in the vampire’s orbs, obviously expecting an answer.

“Prove what?”, the grey girl immediately replied, her anger rapidly dissipating into confusion and doubt.

“That it’s not you”, the Princess answered, watching as glimpses of understanding glistened behind Marceline’s frustration. She waited a few seconds before she continued, proudly explaining her plan. “By my calculations, the thief should return to the Candy kingdom tonight. So…”

“So if I’m locked up and there’s another theft, then it proves that it’s not me”, Marceline completed with a smile. “That’s actually a good plan, Princess.”

Bubblegum’s cheeks reddened at the heartfelt compliment, and in an attempt to hide her embarrassment, she quickly turned around and started walking towards the dungeon’s entrance.

“But it’s not going to work”, the vampire continued with a dark voice, leaning against the bars to keep her eyes on the pink monarch.

“Why?”, Bubblegum asked as she stopped, puzzled.

“These bars don’t hold me; I could get out of here anytime”, Marceline spoke with an assured and defiant voice, even though she was currently struggling against the confines of her cell to look at the princess. She could only see a pink hand waving goodbye as she heard;

“Good luck with that.”

She heard a strange click before she was left alone, listening to the footsteps going along the corridor, then the opening and closing of the loud, heavy door that marked the entrance of the dungeon. Marceline sighed as she looked around her; it was going to be a long night. Curious, she extended her arm through the bars of her cell, but her hand immediately hit something invisible that felt as hard as a rock.

“Stupid force field.”

 

* * *

She had been drinking hot cocoa all night to keep herself awake, but it was starting to be nearly impossible to keep her eyes opened. She walked to her window and stared at the stars, wondering when she’d finally be allowed to rest. Princess Bubblegum yawned as her eyes ran over the buildings of her kingdom, noticing very few lights were still on and no other sound than loud snores.

“Pepppermint Butler!”, she called, hoping her friend was still around, despite the late hour. He appeared in a matter of seconds.

“Yes, Princess?”, he asked, awkwardly bending with a smile although he loathed to be kept awake so late into the night. He hated that his sense of duty didn’t allow him to get any sleep as long as the Princess didn’t rest as well. Although his presence by her side was unnecessary, he had remained at her door’s entrance for the last few hours, waiting and thinking. All this trouble to get the vampire out of Bubblegum’s hold and Marceline was locked up in a cell again? This creature had to be crazy if she thought she’d get any more help from him.

“Still no news?”, the Princess asked, turning around to look at her clock. Peppermint Butler followed her stare and noticed the time, sighing as he realised the sun was going to be up soon. He simply nodded ‘no’ and then rapidly walked out of the room, cursing himself as he made his way towards his chamber, hoping to catch a bit of sleep before morning.

Alone under the windowsill, the Princess frowned. By all her calculations, the thief should have come back that night, and all its evil deeds had previously always been accomplished before two a.m. Once again, she had to face the facts; either she had made a mistake in her math, or it really was Marceline after all.

“Something’s wrong.”

 

* * *

Was it because she was incredibly exhausted, or was it that the scene before her eyes appeared nearly impossible? It was probably for both reasons that it took more than a few seconds for Princess Bubblegum’s brain to compute what was happening before her eyes. It was math, really, just adding up the new parameters of the situation;

  1.       a tall creature wearing a dark cloth was standing in front of the dungeon’s cell;
  2.       the intruder was holding the monarch’s invention, the sun-in-a-gun;
  3.       said-weapon was currently active and aimed at the prisoner;
  4.       there were no screams of pain coming from Marceline’s lifeless body.




	8. The Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now _that’s_ cool.”

“Marceline, are you okay?”

The question remained unanswered as the intruder slowly turned its head around, its penetrating black eyes locking onto the pink monarch as it continued to fire the sun-in-a-gun towards the vampire. The Princess shivered at the sight, noticing the stranger fitted perfectly with her citizens’ descriptions of the thief: dark, tall and mean. She quickly recovered as she closed both her hands into fists, determined to rid her kingdom of the intruder once and for all.

In one brisk movement, she hit a blue button on the wall next to the entrance of the dungeon, sending an alarm all over the castle. Now that she knew reinforcements were on their way, she gathered all her courage and bravely engaged the enemy.

“Stop that, you butt!”

The Princess yelled before she ran up to the stranger, her arms rose over her head as if she was a one-woman army charging the battlefield. Reaching the thief’s side, she immediately grabbed the creature’s dark cloth, her pink fingers brushing against the rough fabric. As the monarch revealed the face that held the two evil black orbs that had caused fear and panic amongst her citizens for weeks, the intruder, startled, lost its hold of the weapon.

The sun-in-a-gun fell onto the floor, breaking upon impact, just like the Princess’ heart when she recognized the stranger’s face.

“It’s you…!”

Although her voice was barely heard, the surprise kept her from closing her mouth. Her brain didn’t have enough time to process the new data as the creature threw a punch at her. Still shocked, she remained paralyzed as the thief’s fist reached her cheek, sending a quick wave of pain through her jaw.  She rapidly recovered as her nervous system reacted, adrenaline flowing through her veins and firing up her instincts.

Princess Bubblegum successfully docked in time to avoid the second blow. Confident, she threw a punch towards the creature’s face, but it stepped back just in the nick of time, making her lose her balance. The stranger took advantage of her weakened state and pushed her away with all its strength, sending her across the room. The monarch crashed into the bars of an opened cell, landing grotesquely on her back. She heard the fabric of her sweater ripping as she painfully pushed herself up and back on her feet. Dizzy, she made a few zigzag steps towards the stranger, closing her fists once again.

It had taken her only a few seconds to return to the fight, and although she found her opponent in the same spot, he now held a strange-looking device in his hands. She stared as he flicked a small switch, his eyes glistening as he noticed the hesitation and puzzlement spread around the pink monarch’s face.  The intruder set down the unknown object on the ground in front of him. Before the Princess had time to react, he started laughing loudly, and the echo of his laugh reverberated on the dungeon walls for a few seconds after he had vanished.

Bubblegum blinked a few times, having a hard time believing her eyes; was the thief really gone? She sent a quick look around the room, and although she was unable to find him, she noticed he had left the device behind. She nervously walked up to it and kneeled beside it, examining its design without touching it. It didn’t take long for her brain to recognize exactly what it was, and immediately it sent another rush of adrenaline through her veins.

“Evacuate the castle! Do you hear me? Evacuate now!”, the Princess screamed to the Banana guards that were running along the corridor leading to the dungeon. She barely listened as the footsteps stopped before the sound slowly faded away, her soldiers quick to the task, for once. Her mind remained concentrated on the problem at hand as she stared at the device and its complex mechanism.

A Tootsie roll bomb. It had been decades since the last one she had seen, but she remembered well the great damage they caused. She had used only one of those against the Bath Boys HQ so many years ago, in retribution for a friend’s death; she had never heard of them again after the blow. Her brain quickly calculated, judging by the size of the weapon, that it could destroy the entire dungeon and half the south wing of the castle in a matter of seconds. She rolled her eyes when she found the clock indicating the time leading to the explosion – _red numbers counting down, really? isn’t that a bit too obvi?_ Forty-nine seconds left. She’d better get going.

She took one step before she remembered her prisoner. In the panic, it had slipped her mind, but now that she was thinking more clearly, she couldn’t leave her behind. The pink monarch rushed towards the cell, her body hitting hard against an invisible wall.

“Stupid force field!”

Bubblegum ran again, this time to the door, hitting with her fist the button that controlled the mechanism. She then returned to Marceline’s side, noticing, before she entered the cell, that the explosive device had just reached thirty-six. She shivered before she slapped the vampire, attempting to wake her. Barely hearing a groan in response, the princess grabbed her prisoner under her arms and started pulling her out.

“Damn girl, for someone who floats you’re real heavy!”

The device had already counted down to twenty-three when the Princess successfully got the vampire out of the holding cell, and so she quickly did the math; she still had enough time to run out of here through the corridor, but not if she dragged Marceline along. If she saved the vampire, she would be able to go half-way, at best. Knowing a Tootsie roll bomb would most likely shatter to pieces the main room of the dungeon, the corridor leading to it would probably collapse onto them, making it possible to survive within the debris, but not likely.

An idea hit her in a flash as the device turned to nineteen, and so she moved quickly to execute her plan. She ran over the unconscious vampire’s body, eager to reach the bomb. Delicately, she kneeled to take it in her hands, her fingers carefully avoiding the cables rigged into the explosive as she stood up slowly. She breathed deeply while she walked into the cell and gently placed the Tootsie roll on the wooden bench, her movements steady despite the fear that overwhelmed her senses.

The princess left the bomb behind as she ran once again out of the cell, her mind continuing the countdown even though she could no longer see the device’s red numbers.

_9…_

_8…_

An arm rose from the vampire’s body and Bubblegum tripped as Marceline’s hand tried to grab her ankle, falling halfway on the floor and on the grey girl’s body.

“Oh come on! It’s so not the time”, she complained loudly, quickly rising to her feet as the vampire lost consciousness once more.

_5…_

_4…_

She pushed the button in time for the force field to return, and watched from the entrance of the room as the bomb blew, destroying the entire cell and projecting its debris violently against the invisible wall that separated them. Bubblegum kept her eyes on the scene, orbs expanding as the explosion caused a ball of flames within the wreckage, dark smoke swirling on itself in the middle of the ruins.

“Now _that’s_ cool.”

 

* * *

 

 

There was no more pain when Marceline woke up, and for a few seconds she thought she had truly died, this time. Surrounded by white curtains, she thought she had reached the 50th Dead World  – the lamest of all dead worlds, really – but when she looked behind her and noticed a yellow wall, she understood she was still alive. As she realised she was lying on a hospital bed, she slowly sat up, noticing a pink blur on her left. Marceline turned her head to see Princess Bubblegum, a book in her hand, sitting beside her, a smirk of contempt spread across her face.

“Ah, took you long enough!”, the pink monarch said as she closed her book, a satisfied smile resting on her lips. Seeing as the vampire appeared lost, she sighed loudly. “You’re in the Candy Kingdom Hospital.”

Marceline frowned, knowing she had little use for doctors. Bubblegum appeared to follow her train of thought, seeing as she quickly explained;

“Your burns were too severe to heal on your own.”

The vampire, despite not being entirely satisfied with the answer, stretched her arms and yawned, pushing the sheets of her body as if she had just woke up for an ordinary night of sleep.

“How long was I out?”, she asked, trying to remember the details of what had happened to her. Only a few images floated around her mind, barely making sense: a dark cloth and, underneath, two empty black eyes; a weird scent she recognized as familiar but couldn’t put her finger on; the terrible sunlight filling her cell, reaching every corner; her own skin burning; blacking out.

“A couple hours. Did you see who attacked you?”, the Princess asked, her hands resting on top of her book, fingers absently running up and down the cover.

“No. You didn’t catch them?”, Marceline interrogated, surprised.

“When I arrived in the dungeon they were already gone.”

Bubblegum sighed and rose from her seat, scratching her neck nervously as she walked towards the end of the bed. Unable to stop her eyes from scattering her looks around, she grabbed the medical file that hanged from the bed’s board and absently tried to read it.

“Hey, what’s up with your hair? Someone tries to kill me and you what? Go out and get a haircut?”

Marceline rose to her feet, barely reaching the floor before she started to float, hovering towards the Princess. There was definitely something off with that pink girl, but she couldn’t figure out what. She crossed her arms and stared, obviously expecting an answer.

“We had to do something to get your strength back”, the pink monarch replied in a whisper, her eyes still avoiding looking at the vampire.

It didn’t take long for the grey girl to understand what had happened.

“So you fed me your hair? Dude, that’s creepy”, Marceline answered with a mocking voice, although she couldn’t stop blushing. Unknowingly, she started opening and closing her mouth, as if she was trying to remember the taste – she couldn’t.

“Hey!”, the Princess objected, throwing the medical file on the bed and locking eyes with the grey girl as she closed her fists. “This creep happened to save your sorry vampire butt so –”

“Yeah, yeah…” Marceline said, waving her hand in the air as if it were nothing. “Thank you Princess.”

The pink monarch didn’t reply, imitating the same gesture with her hand before she turned around, pushing the white drapes out of her way. She stopped between two steps, freezing in place as her head barely curved towards the vampire.

“Bonnibel”, she murmured, one hand still on the white curtain, another clutched onto her book as if holding onto dear life. As if she hadn’t said a word, she then started walking again, leaving the grey girl behind, her footsteps echoing against the infirmary’s yellow walls.

“Huh?”, Marceline wondered as she crossed between the curtains. Floating in the middle of the empty room, she stared at the pink monarch, a strange feeling tugging at her gut; _turn around, please just turn around_.

“’t’s my name”, Bubblegum simply said without another look, as she left the room.

“Oh”, the vampire whispered, dumbfounded by the multiple revelations of the past few minutes. “Bonnibel…”

_Where have I heard that before?_


	9. Experiments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She knows I lied._

As the white sprinkles melted inside the purple concoction, the sticky liquid produced a heavy gray smoke that escaped the glass beaker, flowing down like a gassy river unto the table. It reached a pile of books, some pencils and paperclips before it vanished in thin air, as if it had met the limits of its existence, although the purple goo continued to produce massive amounts of gaz.

“Hm-mm”, a determined voice spoke. “Non conclusive.”

Princess Bubblegum scribbled a few words on the notepad she held close to her heart, taking a step behind before she pressed an orange button. A long metal claw dropped from the ceiling, grabbing the glass and raising it onto the air, to be disposed of as every other unsatisfying experiment.

“It’s almost midnight.”

The distracted princess raised her head. As she seemed to be alone in her laboratory, she shrugged and returned to her studies, thinking her mind was starting to play tricks on her. Someone cleared their throat.

“Sorry to interrupt. As I said, it’s almost midnight.”

The pink monarch finally recognized her butler’s voice, and so she looked around more carefully, her eyes wincing only to find him standing at the entrance of the room, staring disapprovingly.

“I know, I’m almost done”, she answered, ignoring his disapproval of her latest science craze.

This time, it had started with an idea that had flourished on her way back to the castle, after her conversation with Marceline. Dwelling over the guilt from having lied to her potential new friend, the thought had appeared as a flicker of light through the dark; why not build a lie-detector?

Ignoring the irony that underlined the fact that she, of all people, would want to create such a device, she had ran all the way back to her lab and had locked herself in. Hours had gone by and soon they had turned into days, and still she worked relentlessly, until Science had suggested that some sort of truth serum might be easier to accomplish.

Therefore here she was, starting from scratch as she pondered the new parameters involved in the creation of such a potion.

“You said the same thing four days ago.”

Princess Bubblegum refrained herself from answering that four days ago, she was still working on the machine, and thus, wasting her time. She shrugged again, not bothered enough to argue. In her attempts to avoid the conversation she kept having with Peppermint Butler about her royal duties and her penchant for hiding away from them here, she hadn’t even noticed that he now stood by her side, an intriguing black case in his tiny hands.

“Four days? I guess that’s why I’m hungry.”

“What about sleep?”, he asked as he pricked her with a long needle, his behavior still calm and natural, as if that was the most common thing in the world.

“Ow! What about it?”, she replied angrily, brushing her hand against the bruised skin where she had been stung. She watched as he returned to where he stood before, too tired to question his actions.

“You haven’t slept in four days either”, Peppermint Butler replied, all the while opening a control panel and typing in some sort of code.

“I’m busy”, Bubblegum whined, eyebrows raised as she wondered what exactly her butler was working on. Her brain quickly computed some theories; some of her most dangerous creations could only be accessed by feeding a sample of her DNA to the control panel, but somehow, she knew that was not Peppermint’s intention. Her trust prevented her from asking any questions as she stared at him, impatiently waiting for whatever little trick he was about to perform.

“I can see that. Which is why, I have to do this –”

As he pulled on the green side lever, red lights flashed around the room from every corner. The surprised monarch looked around her; her thoughts too muffled by tiredness to understand what was going on.

“What the glob?”

She heard the mechanical strain of the metal claw as it navigated around the ceiling and perched itself right on top of her. Princess Bubblegum barely had the time to curse before it snapped, grabbing the edge of her lab coat and lifting her up her feet. She squirmed as it transported her through the air and threw her out the door, the room immediately sealing itself from the rest of the castle with thick candy cane walls that came down as quickly as the monarch had rose back to her feet.

“Intruder neutralised”, the cold voice of the security device indicated.

Bubblegum closed her hands into fists and turned angrily to face Peppermint Butler, but he had already vanished.

“Seriously?” she spoke, the tone halfway between protesting and begging. With a groan, she kicked the candy cane wall, sighing before she walked away, hating the fact that her old friend had, once again, succeeded in pulling her out of her science diversions and thrown her back into reality.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Even the deep love she felt for every citizen of the Candy kingdom could not prevent Princess Bubblegum from laughing at their naivety as she walked amongst them, unrecognized under her costume. A navy blue sweater stained with paint and motor oil, a pair of washed out jeans and black thick glasses with a giant plastic nose and a small moustache glued underneath was all she needed to roam the streets anonymously. Really, they should know better, she kept frowning until she reached her usual hiding spot.

It wasn’t the first time that she went there, but as usual, she was surprised by the existence of such a place inside the walls of her kingdom. Even though she herself found the need to come here every once in a while, she sighed when she thought it was a necessary evil – the Candy Tavern simply had to exist. And she, as a ruler of the land, had to turn a blind eye to it.

Fortunately she, under the disguise of a strange man in a navy blue sweater, had every right to be here to enjoy a few hours of shady entertainment. She ordered cranberry juice as she sat down to her usual table in a dark corner and smiled as her entrance in the bar wasn’t noticed by anyone. Somehow, she genuinely enjoyed being no one, although it was never the point of her secret visits to this hell hole.

By vaguely listening to the conversations around her, she learned many things on the affairs going on in her kingdom, and the various problems she would have to solve in order to balance the frail economic and social system she had created with her bare hands. Apparently, there was an illegal black treacle trade that had dangerously grown in the last few months – something she should take care of before it was blown out of proportions. There was also the trouble of someone smuggling fake chocolate chips, and something about a yellow dog that kept stealing old women’s purses. She sighed again, the weight of her royal duties crushing the small moments of happiness she had managed to find in the strain of her latest science rush.

There was an overwhelming freedom she gained every time she pushed the limits of her own body, locking herself up in her lab and hiding from everything she had done to take back the Land of Ooo from toxic waste and ooze mutants. Only those frenzied days in the dark of her lab could give her such deep and soothing pleasure; the rush of adrenaline that came with sheer discovery.

“Is this on?”

Princess Bubblegum raised her head, unaware that, while she was spying on the nearby conversations, a stage had been set up at the opposite side of the bar. On the precarious scene, under fogged lights and half-sitting on a bar stool, a vampire awkwardly held onto a red guitar. One finger gently tapping against the microphone, Marceline ran her eyes around the room, as if searching for someone amongst the small crowd. The pink monarch shivered, for once afraid her costume wasn’t going to be enough to fool someone, forgetting that she was sitting in a dark corner way across the room, and therefore invisible to the girl under the stage lights.

“Okay, so this one I’m still working on…”

The grey girl spoke shyly before she closed her eyes and sighed. As the breath escaped her lips, music filled the room, the patrons interrupting their usual chitchats to turn their attention to the performance. The spell only lasted a few seconds before the bar busied itself again; the song barely listened to, except for a strange man with a navy blue sweater who couldn’t stop staring.

“ _Why did you tell me your name_  
I never asked for it  
You treat me like I’m one of yours  
But I will never bow before you  
Don’t you see how crazy that is  
People bowing before people  
I ran away from just that  
Why did you tell me your name  
You never asked for mine”

The last line stung Bubblegum’s heart as she rushed out of her seat, and her glass of cranberry juice had barely hit the ground that already she was outside, her shoes hitting the cold sidewalk while she ran into the darkness of the night, pestering against her ridiculous costume.

_She knows_ , the pink monarch kept thinking as her muscles tensed. _She knows I lied_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Do not despair, all is not lost”, a dark voice spoke, its owner standing mysteriously afar from the campfire, near the entrance to the woods. “Every pawn is still in place.”

“I know”, Peppermint Butler replied with his eyes still fixed onto the flames, watching the hypnotizing motions they made as they licked the small circle of stones he had gathered, as if the blaze itself was trying to run away, or to conquer all.

“We will prevail”, the stranger declared with both assurance and impatience, the fury in its voice sending cold shivers throughout the candy’s frail body despite the warmth of the campfire.

“We will”, he answered in a brief whisper even though he knew the figure had already vanished. He gulped before he grabbed the shovel he had brought along, quickly extinguishing the fire by stifling it with the surrounding dirt. As he worked, all that accompanied him was the sizzling of the flames, the few sparks that somehow managed to escape the embers and the deep worry that had nested deep in his gut.


	10. Travel Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just say yes, Marceline.”

She didn’t know if it was because deep down, there was a meanie residing in her gut, but sometimes, Princess Bubblegum felt twisted rushes of glee in the most cruel of times. Watching the Duke squirm awkwardly as she insisted upon seeing Marceline and the flash of sheer sadness that had crossed his eyes when the vampire had grabbed her hand to fly her out of his castle, both sights had brought her a strange feeling of superiority and joy that she simultaneously feared and loved. It seemed to her it came from the same source that her bolts of dark humor and sarcasm derived from; a black part of her that pulsed with something other than the hope and assurance she usually fueled her actions with. It was a lumping mystery that she did not care to explain.

She briskly jumped off that train of thought as she landed roughly on the castle’s roof.

“Hey! You could’ve been more careful, I nearly fell!”

Beside her, the vampire floated with a smirk spread across her face, hovering in a sitting position less than a foot above the surface.

“Seems to me you’re fine”, Marceline replied, not sparing her another look as she took out some red licorice from her pocket. She sent her gaze onto the horizon, staring at the autumn colored forest that surrounded the Duchy of Nuts. It had become a familiar sight over time, and still, it did not feel like home. She sighed. “If you don’t like my landings, don’t fly with me.”

“I never asked to fly with you”, Bubblegum angrily retorted, her cheeks flushing with red as she realised that she had come here to ask just that.

“Yeah well”, the vampire’s voice seemed to hesitate, as if she couldn’t find the right comeback. “Stop acting like a little princess.”

The pink monarch crossed her arms and stared at her disapprovingly. A few seconds passed while neither of them talked, only the slurping sound of Marceline’s sucking on the red licorice filling the air between them.

“What?”, the grey girl asked, obviously annoyed by the intent look that rested on her.

“Is that from my castle? I’ve had an entire case of red licorice stolen last week.”

“No!”, the vampire defended herself in a suspicious burst. Knowing she did not sound too convincing, she continued. “And if it was, what do you care?”

The pink monarch sighed before she sat down beside her, hugging her knees in front of her to get some warmth. Even though she was used to flying on the Morrow, it still surprised her how cold the temperature could get in high places such as this. She detached her gaze from Marceline and sent a look around, taking in the beauty of the land before her eyes.

“I don’t”, Bonnibel replied with a soft smile, noticing from the corner of her eyes the surprise that spread on the vampire’s face before it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Why did you need to steal those?”

“Obvs, I need the red”, the bothered grey girl answered, waving the whitened licorice around. “There aren’t a lot of red things in the Duchy of Nuts, you know.”

The pink monarch wanted to ask why Marceline had come back here after the murder attempt on her life, why she hadn’t ran away to hide somewhere, or at least found her own place instead, but she refrained herself. Instead, she offered her another smile.

“I meant, you could’ve asked.”

Marceline’s mouth opened in surprise, and it took her a few seconds before realising her facial expression was nothing but embarrassing. She closed her lips together and shrugged; “I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“Well, it’s too late for that, seeing as you apparently feed on my candy supplies anyway”, the princess answered, her tone devoid of anger but still filled with something imposing, almost threatening. “Since I came here to ask for a favor though, you won’t owe me for long.”

“And what would that be?”, the vampire wondered, finally tearing her eyes away from the landscape to look at the pink monarch that sat beside her.

“Just to fly me somewhere”, the Princess asked, so softly it almost sounded like a whisper.

Confused, the vampire stood up, floating a few feet away as she commented, “I thought you didn’t want to fly with me”, and the slight tones of sadness in her voice were impossible to hide.

“I never actually said that” the princess protested while she rose up, standing awkwardly as the cold whiffs spiraled around her. “Come on, just say yes…”

“But you said –”

“I said I had never asked to fly with you, and now I’m asking” Bonnibel interrupted her with an angry retort that still managed to sound like an olive branch. “Just say yes, Marceline.”

The vampire remained silent for more than a few seconds, and so it almost came as a surprise to them both when her voice rang again, soft against the harsh wind that was blowing against them.

“Okay.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Marceline had always hated to fly with someone else holding onto her; if it was her pride or her hermit’s instinct that prevented her from enjoying the experience, she didn’t know. She could not count the number of times she had ran away from people or from parties so that her newfound friends wouldn’t be offended that she would refuse. Somehow, it often seemed to them as if, since she had the ability to take them up into the sky, she owed it to them; or maybe it was simply because there was no other way for them to ever get to fly, that they were so insistent.

On that particular note, Marceline had to agree that, all things considered, flying was pretty globbing awesome.

It was, however, quite strange to have such a freeing experience while at the same time feeling arms wrapped tightly across her chest, as if holding onto dear life. As she was crossing the blue sky above Ooo, the vampire convinced herself that it was for the safety of her passenger that she was flying so slowly, floating almost, their flight taking a bit more time than it had too. If she had questioned her intentions more closely, though, Marceline would’ve found that unfortunately, it wasn’t only because she, against all odds, actually enjoyed the trip to Candid Mountain. Something else was on her mind, and as they hovered above an old tree house, a terrible question came to her.

“Isn’t that mountain a part of the Ice Kingdom now?” Marceline asked, having to scream the words against the wind to ensure that they would reach the Princess’s hearing.

“Yeah,‘t’s why I couldn’t go with Lady, she hates the cold”, the pink monarch explained softly. With her head resting against Marceline’s shoulder, she had merely to lift her face to speak directly in the vampire’s ear, and that proximity added both a source of relief and a newfound stress on the grey girl.

“Don’t you have a bird that can fly you anywhere?”, Marceline protested, her voice childlike despite the strain of effort she had to put behind each word.

“The Morrow’s wings could cause an avalanche”, the Princess replied, gasping as she felt one of her arms slipping. A grey hand grabbed her immediately, tightening her grasp around her passenger.

“Don’t worry, I got you”, the vampire spoke softly, and despite the cold harsh wind that should’ve prevented the words from reaching her friend, she felt the Princess relax into her, as if she had heard what Marceline had just said.

The vampire sighed as she continued her journey, knowing the pink monarch had no idea of how hard her simple request was on Marceline. Had she known they were going to the Ice Kingdom, she would have refused immediately. A little voice inside her insisted that it might be why the Princess hadn’t volunteered that information upfront, and she shook her head in denial as she took a turn, angling towards an icy peak. _Simon is not here_ , she kept repeating herself, slowing down as Candid Mountain entered her eyesight.

Her grasp tightened around Bonnibel’s arms, and the Princess foolishly believed the vampire was trying to make her feel safe as she was getting ready to land.

_Simon is not here._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Although she did not like winter – which was somewhat ironic for someone cold-blooded – Marceline enjoyed the quietness that came along with it. It was as if the white snowflakes absorbed sounds in a different way, softening everything around them. She sent one look at the cloudless sky as her fingers brushed against the piece of wood she had found earlier.

“What are you doing?”

Bonnibel’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she lowered her gaze rapidly, not understanding why her cheeks were suddenly flushed with embarrassment.

“Writing a song”, she replied as if her actions were as clear as day. Of course, to an outsider, the dried branch she held did not even remotely look like a guitar, and her faint humming was probably unheard by the Princess who busied herself ten feet away. Still, it seemed obvious to her that writing a song would be the thing to do, confined as she was under her umbrella.

She continued to stare as Bubblegum’s attention returned to her task, carefully taking samples of – well, of pretty much everything that grew on the globbing mountain. Marceline’s grey fingers continued to play silent chords while she curiously observed her friend’s work, awed in front of Bonnibel’s disciplined movements as she tagged every specimen before safely putting it away in her green backpack.

While both girls enjoyed the silence and involved themselves entirely in their respective activity, they failed to notice the shift in the air surrounding them.

“What are you two doing here?!”

The scream startled the two girls, their eyes immediately rising to meet the angered stare of an old blue man wearing a golden crown. Bubblegum shivered, as she had heard stories about the Ice King, but had never given them a second thought until today. All those centuries she had successfully avoided him suddenly seemed ridiculous, and if she wasn’t terrified she would probably be laughing right now, because really, he hadn’t changed that much.

It was when she noticed the clench in Marceline’s jaw and how she held the dried up branch in front of her – almost as if she was trying to hide behind it –, that Bonnibel finally retrieved her voice.

“Be quiet, Ice King, you’re going to cause an avalanche”, the pink monarch spoke, insistent and yet confident while she discreetly grabbed her backpack and took a few steps to close the gap between herself and the vampire.

“Don’t tell me to shut up!”, the deranged man screamed again, louder even. “You are trespassing on my kingdom!”

He smiled victoriously as he noticed the change on the two girls’ faces; their eyes widening in fear and their mouths opening as if they were about to scream in terror. He crossed his arms in front of him, floating a bit higher, relishing in his desire to gloat.

“Well, what do you say?”, the Ice King spoke, clearly awaiting an apology, preferably in the form of a stuttering monologue begging for his mercy.

“Oh my Glob, we have to get out of here”, the pink girl urged as she turned to her grey friend, but the latter remained frozen in place, gulping as her eyes tried to understand the severity of their situation. “Marceline, we have to go!”

The last sentence sounded as much as an order than as a plea, Bubblegum’s hands desperately pulling onto the vampire’s arms, trying to snap her out of her stupor. The frightened girl blinked a few times before she turned to face her friend, only to find that it was too late.

In mere seconds the avalanche had reached them, and the grey and pink fingers that had somehow managed to intertwine were violently separated by the destructive wave that engulfed both of their bodies. The weight of the snow pressured Bonnibel’s lungs so harshly that she couldn’t draw breath, painfully rendering her unconscious amongst the cold darkness that surrounded her.


	11. Snowed In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're clever, I'll give you that."

Barely awake, Bonnibel wondered how it could be possible that her body felt so numb while her skin hurt as excruciatingly as if she was being burnt alive. Opening her eyes, she could see nothing, and she swallowed hard at the remembrance of the avalanche. Quickly regaining her instincts of survival, she moved painfully, her body entirely restrained by the snow surrounding her. It took her all the strength she had, but she managed to struggle enough to be able to feel the earth’s gravity again.

Shallow breaths reminded her that her oxygen supply was greatly limited, and so, as adrenaline ran through her veins, she patiently dig her way up – or towards what she hoped was up. After what seemed an eternity, her efforts were greatly rewarded when she reached the surface, finally able to fill her lungs entirely. Drawing a deep breath only caused her to cough in pain, but she revelled in the notion that she had, despite all odds, survived yet another cruel fate.

Using what seemed to be the last of her energy reserve, she pulled herself on top of the snow, lying on her back as her body rested shortly, her eyes locked onto the sky above. It had turned more orange than blue, in the course of the last few hours, which warned Bubblegum that she wasn’t as safe as she somehow felt. The night was going to fall onto the land soon, and she knew nothing about this mountain, nor the way to go back home.

The thought of home suddenly reminded her that she had not gotten here alone, and once again she gathered every bit of will that remained inside her to get back onto her feet. She walked a few paces before she stumbled, falling on her knees as she desperately looked for signs of disturbance amongst the perfectly still surface of the snow. A wave of despair rushed from her stomach to her throat as she realised Marceline was nowhere to be seen.

Behind her, footsteps approached, and she sighed with relief.

“I should’ve known you’d be okay… You got me really worried you know”, she confessed in a whisper, her voice hoarse from the pain her body was still into.

“You got me worried too, honey.”

As the old man’s voice reached her ears, Bonnibel turned around briskly, the movement dizzying as her eyes landed on his crazy and wide smile. She shivered with horror before she lost consciousness one more time, barely registering that he had grabbed her and thrown her lifeless body onto his shoulder.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Well, it had to be a nightmare, so really, Marceline could not understand why pinching herself awake was not working.

Still, on her twelfth attempt, she had to admit that maybe it was time to try something else. And so, pouting like a punished child, she slowly made her way through the snow, cursing and whining as if she had been asked to eat an entire plate of Brussels sprouts. This day was definitely not going as she had expected, and somehow, it was all Bubblegum’s fault, she thought. Her anger gave her renewed strength as she found the surface, vowing that she would never, ever agree to help the pink monarch again.

Only, when she pulled herself off the ground and noticed the pale stars in the darkened sky, her wish for payback died in her stomach as quickly as it had appeared.

Haggardly looking around her, she noticed a disturbance on the otherwise perfectly smooth snow white surface. She shook the snowflakes off her as hard as she could before floating towards what she could now see as a hole in the ground, as if someone had dug their way up. The vampire smiled.

“You’re clever, I’ll give you that”, she whispered through her teeth, reaching closer to where her friend had evidently surfaced.

She felt nauseous when relief left her body as harshly as it had arrived, suddenly noticing how the footsteps leading out of the whole disappeared into a strange shape; as if someone had fumbled around before vanishing into thin air. She frowned, wondering how the Princess could have left the mountain without leaving any trace behind.

In a foolish attempt to make sense of the situation, she returned to the hole and lowered her head in it, as if she thought the pink monarch was going to be hiding in there. Hiding from what, she had no idea.

The thought reminded her of how they had gotten into this predicament in the first place, and it was with a sigh that she spoke out loud the same words she had repeated in her mind, as a horrible mantra, as she had flown all the way to the Ice Kingdom.

“Simon’s definitely not here.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

At least the fire was warm and the clothes were dry, Bubblegum told herself as she sat down on the surprisingly comfortable chair. She thanked the penguin – Gunther, she thought was his name – as it offered her a cup of hot cocoa. She had never really been abducted before, but this seemed to be a bit nicer than it was supposed to be – well, in her imagination, that is. Despite the fact that she was grateful she had been wrong in expecting torture, the princess remained entirely on her guard, and so she did not drink the hot beverage, and merely revelled in the warmth it brought to her palms.

Sitting across from her, the Ice King stretched his arms and legs before taking off his crown, leaving it on the table between them as if it was the most natural thing. Their eyes crossed and she shivered, noticing the crazy spark that widened his pupils. Mistaking her horrified shudder for a need for more warmth, he yelled the penguin’s name loudly. The black and white creature appeared, a blanket stuck in its tiny flaps as it slowly made its way across the room. It missed a step and fell onto its face, the princess automatically reaching up to help the penguin, only to find a cold blue hand resting on her arm.

“I’ve got it baby”, the Ice King spoke, and although he meant his voice to be soft and comforting, it resonated as a threat against the cavern’s walls. “Gunther, what are you doing?”

The old man asked the rhetorical question angrily as he walked towards the creature that now struggled against the blanket, quacking as its flaps tried to untangle its body from under the dark cloth.

It was as much momentum as she thought she was going to get, and so Bubblegum sprinted out of there as quickly as she could, running towards the exit as if her life depended on it – and maybe it did, but she didn’t want to stick around to find out. Her muscles tensed with pain as she pushed them to their limit, feeling the sharp cold air painfully rushing in and out of her weakened lungs. _Come on_ , she cheered herself as she saw the night sky and, with it, her way out of this lumping cavern. _You’re almost there_.

She stopped herself at the last second, her feet slipping onto the ice from the sudden change of pace. Her body hit the ground, sucking the air out of her and bruising her hip before her head also reached the floor, pain emerging from various parts of her as she contemplated the comforting little lights glowing up there, in the terrible black sky.

“Where do you think you’re going?”, the Ice King hissed behind her as she slowly returned to her feet.

Staring down the mile-high cliff, Princess Bubblegum sighed. She had no idea.


	12. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And I’ll never be nice."

Marceline ran her hand through her hair one more time, eyes wincing when her fingers met frozen locks. It wasn’t her fault that they had been caught in an avalanche, and that Simon had now taken Bubblegum as his prisoner – another one of his princesses, she nearly threw up at the thought. It certainly was not because of her that the monarch and she had found themselves here, in the Ice Kingdom, a place the vampire had sworn she would never return to. _Stupid Bonnibel_.

Definitely, none of it could be blamed on her, she decided as she floated towards the Land of Ooo, slowly putting more distance between her and the icy peaks she hated. There was no point in feeling guilty of leaving; Princess Bubblegum had gotten herself into this mess, and therefore she had to get out of it by her own means.

As much as she rationalized her decision of leaving, she could not explain why she had spent the last half-hour digging up the snow around the hole from which the pink monarch had emerged, or the surprising joy she had felt when she had finally found what she was looking for.

Green backpack safely thrown on her shoulders, Marceline told herself she could not care less about what happened to Bonnibel.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“And they lived happily ever after”, the Ice King spoke before closing the book on his lap, a content smile resting upon his lips. He forced himself to wait a few seconds before impatiently asking; “well, did you like it?”

Behind the bars of her jail, sitting cross-legged on her bunk bed, the Princess frowned.

“It lacked intrigue”, she answered, her voice dignified even though she clearly did not have the upper hand in this strange situation she had gotten stuck into.

For the most part of the last hour, the old man had read to her story after story, each one more pathetic than the other, and every time, he expected her to tell him she had loved it. Every fable ended in the same way – the not-really-loveable hero finding his one true love and sharing a kiss with the naïve-and-badly-written-or-stupid princess – and so, even though she had found the whole thing quite laughable at first, she now found herself deeply and utterly bored.

“What are you talking about? There was plenty of intrigue!”, he complained, rising from his seat across the room and angrily closing the distance between them. Bubblegum swallowed hard, for she thought she had triggered something violent inside him, but he simply came crashing against the jail bars, resting his forehead against the cold icicles that formed her containment chamber.

“Your hero’s nemesis was a fluffy bunny whose only wish was to eat the flowers of his garden”, the pink monarch argued, although nothing good could come out of it. Still, it was better than remaining silent, because the nonstop flow of despair she felt from him was starting to drive her crazy. “I hardly call that suspense.”

She heard a small cry and for a second, she questioned if it was coming from her or from him. Her hand reached her cheeks, but her fingers met nothing but dry skin.

“You’re not nice”, he whined, closing his eyes as another sob left his body. Behind him, Gunther remained perfectly still, its dark eyes staring at her as if it was blaming her for everything. She shivered under his gaze, wondering how a creature that had, at first, seemed so incredibly cute, now appeared as one of the cruelest monsters she had ever seen. Still, she refused to be belittled by her abductors and rose to her feet, walking towards the pathetic old man.

“And I’ll never be nice”, she replied with a threatening voice.

Upon hearing her voice, he suddenly managed to compose himself, although his constant sniffing and the wiping of his tears made him look more like a child than like a king.

“No, you will be”, he insisted, his fists closing on both sides of his body as he took a step back. “When you fall in love with me.”

“That’ll never happen, Ice King!”

Her protest seemed vain as the old man was already walking away, throwing his book onto his seat before he left the room. From further down the corridor, she heard his insane voice again.

“Goodnight sweetie!”

As if it had been waiting for this moment, the penguin quacked loudly towards the princess before it threw a bucket of water on the small fire that had been lighting the room, leaving her in complete darkness. Her confidence suddenly lacking, she returned to the bunk bed, grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around her as she sat, knees bent in front of her as a barrier between her and the cold.

She didn’t think she was going to be able to sleep, and so it came as a quite a surprise when she started dreaming. In her fantasy, she wasn’t alone; someone had come to help. She smiled when she realised who it was, and almost didn’t answer when her friend asked her;

“Are you alright?”

Princess Bubblegum allowed a small laugh to leave her lips before she asked; “what took you so long?”

She didn’t move, her eyes staring straight ahead as her hallucinated savior tried to force open the gate that prevented her from leaving. The pink monarch wondered why her captor had even bothered to lock her in here; it wasn’t as if she was going to be able to fly away on her own. That fact could very be the main reason why her subconscious was creating this strangely realistic dream, she thought – because somewhere deep down, she believed Marceline was her best chance of getting out of here.

“I was trying to find your stupid backpack, you butt!”

The angry words whispered against the icicle bars hit a string inside Bonnibel’s stomach. She quickly stood on her feet, taking a few steps forward as she tentatively spoke; “Marceline?”

“Yeah, what?”, the vampire asked, annoyed, as she stopped her efforts to look at her captive friend. Through the darkness, her vampire eyes could still see everything as clearly as if it were daylight, but she had forgotten that the same could not be said for Bubblegum. She sighed as she passed one arm between the bars, awkwardly reaching to comfort her. “Come on B, give me a hand, we don’t have much time…”

“No, you really don’t.”

The familiar voice sent tears to the vampire’s eyes, and for a moment she was grateful that the room was still filled with darkness. She turned around to look at him, even though a part of her wanted to start shouting at the princess for putting them into this situation to begin with. She took a deep breath as she stepped forward, her stare locked on Simon and the lantern he held in his left hand. Relief overcame her as she noticed he didn’t have the crown on; maybe she could still reason with him.

“Look, playtime’s over man, I gotta bring the girl back to her place now”, she spoke lightly, as if there was nothing to be horrified about. As if the man she had loved as her father wasn’t standing across the room, looking at her as if she was the enemy all the while he held one of her friends as a prisoner.

“She lives here”, he shrugged.

“I think she doesn’t want to”, Marceline insisted, taking another step forward, noticing something shiny hanging from his neck. “I think she wants to leave.”

“No, she wants to stay”, the Ice King stated, and she smiled at how incredibly childish he sounded like, remembering her own childlike state only a few hours ago, when she had tried to pinch herself awake to avoid seeing him again. The sudden softness of her expression wasn’t lost on him as he angrily stomped the floor. “She’s mine!”

Neither Princess Bubblegum nor the Ice King expected the vampire’s answer, and she barely had time to register their surprise as she simply replied “okay then”, before she disappeared into thin air.

_So much for a rescue_ , Bonnibel thought.


	13. Breaking Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bonnibel, you’ve got the brains... Just… come… on!”

“Well, that’s an interesting turn of events.”

The Princess’s voice echoed against the rock walls surrounding her as she brushed her hands on her clothes, trying to rid herself of the dust. She didn’t need more than a look around to get her bearings, and still, she couldn’t stop staring ahead. After a long, deep breath, she took one step forward, her gaze now entirely embracing the unbelievable landscape that rested before her.

“The Endless Labyrinth of Doom”, she spoke to herself, eyes still running on the complex maze in front of her.

She had heard tales of it before, and of the treasures that lied hidden in a dangerous underground cavern from which nobody ever came back once they had entered – which always made her reply that, if no one had survived the challenge there and back, how did they know it existed? She shook her head as she threw away her winter coat, knowing she now stood very, very far from the Ice Kingdom from which she had been taken.

“Come on”, she cheered herself as she rolled her sleeves up her arms. “Let’s see whatcha got.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Ten hours earlier**

 

“You are terribly evil, old friend.”

The dark voice rose between the snowed trees as if it followed the vertical path of the fire’s smoke, its black evil intonations swirling through the air.

“Of course, you will also need this”, he added, long arm extending from beneath his long and heavy cloth. As it now fell into the domain of the campfire’s light, one could almost see the scars that ran along the pink skin, rivers of ancient pains that did not seem to end. In the middle of his hand rested small golden key, a red ruby engraved in its intricate design.

A tiny flap grabbed it unceremoniously, the gesture immediately followed by a loud, disgraceful quack.

“No, it is I who thank you, Gunther.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

As she awoke from the uncomfortable bunk bed, Princess Bubblegum wondered if it had all been a dream. She toyed for a few seconds with the last words she had heard before falling asleep – a small whisper that had come to her in the complete darkness of her jail; “don’t worry B, I’ve got a plan”. This morning though, she was definitely alone and Marceline’s rescue, if it had been real, had obviously failed.

She stretched her arms and legs before pulling off the blanket from her body, yawning deeply as her eyes winced. Sleeping would have brought her some rest if she had dared to take off her winter coat and boots, but seeing as she had expected to bust out of here before morning came… She shrugged.

This was barely the worst threat she had faced in her incredibly long life; she didn’t need a friend or a hero to help her out of this cage. She was Princess Bubblegum, for Glob’s sake!

Comforted by the strength of her newly found courage, she stood up bravely, resting her hands on her thighs.

“Ok, break it down”, she confidently told herself, her eyes running across the room. In the morning light, details seemed clearer than they had appeared before. She noticed the book on the Ice King’s throne had been moved; a chandelier that had rested on the foyer had fallen on its side; a blue wig hanged precariously from a coat check and… Her backpack?

Her smile widened as she ran to the icicle bars of her cell, her hand reaching through to try and grab the green bag. She felt her fingers brushing against the fabric, but it seemed too far away to hold firmly. She repositioned her body on the floor, pushing herself forward in a desperate attempt to gain enough distance to pull her backpack closer to her. Unsuccessful, she refrained from cursing as she abandoned the task, sitting with her back against the icicles, holding her head in her pink hands.

Her frustrated sigh quickly replaced by a genius idea, she returned to her feet. Happy grin stuck to her face, she tied one end of her blanket in a tight knot around her crown, before returning to the entrance of her containment chamber. Throwing the cloth on her shoulder, she rubbed her hands together, cracking her neck as she encouraged herself.

“You can do it Peebs”, she whispered through her teeth, eyes locked on her green backpack. “Come on!”

Filled with a renewed confidence in her abilities, she threw the crown towards her bag, firmly holding the other end of the blanket. It landed beside her target, but Princess Bubblegum didn’t despair. Pulling it back, she cheered again.

“It’s mathematical girl”, she told herself while she readied herself for another throw. Steadying her feet on the ice, she breathed down deeply and exhaled as she tossed the tiara once more.

This time, it hit the front of the backpack, and she crossed her fingers as the green bag slightly rocked, scared it would fall backwards; if it did, there would be no other way to reach it, she thought. It remained in place, though, and she sighed with relief as she pulled back the blanket. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, she wondered, but a strange humming coming from the depths of the corridor reminded her that there was no time for deliberations.

“Bonnibel, you’ve got the brains”, she started. “Just… come… on!”

The crown landed perfectly behind the backpack, but she knew it was only half the job. She stopped breathing as her hands tightened their grip around the blanket; if the movement was too slow or too eager, the tiara would merely slither onto the tip of the bag.

Although it still seemed far away, the humming was coming closer to her, and without thought, she closed her eyes as she pulled. A light thump sent a rush of joy to her heart as she opened her eyes and confirmed that her hopes had been right; the backpack had fallen flat on the ground. Crouching against the bars, she reached for it, pride rushing through her veins as her fist closed on the fabric, a firm grip that allowed her to jerk it back to her cell despite its weight.

And by all lumps, this thing was heavy! Just how many samples of rocks had she taken?

“Boo-ba-doo-ba-doo-doo-wa-waaaaaa” the Ice King sang enthusiastically as he entered the room. “Yeaaaaahhhhh!”

Eyes closed as he finished his improvised song by a few step dances and jazz hands, he could not see that the princess he held captive had thrown her blanket over a green backpack that rested against the icicle bars of her cell. She had wished she would have enough time to hide it inside her containment chamber, but still, it seemed better to hide it underneath the cloth than to leave it there in plain sight. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she placed herself in the middle of her jail and tapped her foot on the floor, pretending exasperation. Okay, maybe not pretending; clearly, she had no patience for the old man’s crazy mood swings.

“Slept well, baby doll?”, he asked, flashing a smile.

“Not really, no”, she answered. “You have to let me go. My Banana guards –”

“Oh shush”, he silenced her, taking a step forward, still dancing to a song only he could hear. “They’re no match for me.”

As he continued to move around the room, Bonnibel’s brain was working overtime. Three penguins had followed the king and joined him in his charade, and the sight made her realise that there had to be another way out of here, one that didn’t involve falling to her death from a mile-high cliff, because those small birds definitely did not have the ability to fly. Confident, she decided it was time to try, once again, to make a run for it; she would simply have to go towards the inner mountain, the long way around.

It was with that thought that she noticed, hanging from the Ice King’s neck, a small golden key. A quick and discreet look to the side confirmed that it could easily fit inside the lock that kept the icicle bars of her containment chamber in place. She smiled as the mechanics of her brain computed the ways she could steal it from him without raising suspicion.

Putting on her best fake smile, she took a breath before stepping to the side, and to the front, waltzing alone in her cell. It only took a few seconds before the old man realised she was dancing too, and as she had planned, he quickly pulled down a lever on the side of his throne, opening the gate and allowing her to join the party.

“Boo-ba-doo-ba-doo-doo-wa-waaaaaa”, the Ice King repeated the same notes, jumping in front of the princess and grabbing her hands to swing her around. Surprised, she gasped, but was quickly reminded of her task as the key dangled in front of her eyes. A few moves and bingo, she had it between her fingers, burning her hand as she threw it in the deep of her pocket. Afraid he would notice its absence, she joined in the signing.

“Boo-ba-doo-ba-doo-doo”, she started, her enthusiasm becoming less and less faked as she suddenly found herself whistling.

However, as her eyes crossed with Gunther’s, a shiver ran down her spine, freezing her in place as the song died on her lips.

“What?”, the Ice King asked, annoyed that his fun was so suddenly put to an end.

“Oh um… I’m hungry”, the princess spoke rapidly, mentally pestering against the dangers of improvisation. “Maybe you could… take me out for a bite?”

The old man’s frown was filled with hesitation as he stared at her. Knowing she was close to her goal, but not exactly there, she innocently added; “I know a really good place in the Breakfast Kingdom…”

A frustrated groan left the Ice King as he grabbed her arm and violently threw her back into her cell, rapidly locking her away once more.

“Your tricks won’t work on me!”, he yelled angrily before turning his back, obviously ready to leave her alone to her hunger. “Gunther, stand guard!”

The order echoed in the ice cavern as his footsteps faded away. From the depth of her jail, the Princess smiled, her hand reaching inside her pocket for the key she had stolen.

“Mathematical”, she whispered to herself, grinning happily as she planned her escape.


	14. Mazes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, ‘t’s me. Don’t worry, I’m here to resc– woa what?”

It was a peculiar tingling sensation that started in the midst of her right palm but quickly grew more annoying than pleasant, kind of like an irrepressible urge to scratch that small square of skin on your back that you can’t reach. The feeling rapidly spread to her entire body, and as she noticed small pink sparkles coming off of her, she realised something was off.

Something weird was definitely happening.

Whether it was instinct or quick thinking, she could not know, but immediately she pushed her body against the icicle bars and grabbed her green backpack, pulling on it with all her strength. The fabric started to tear itself apart from the tension, and yet she managed to get it through, desperate to search for a solution inside. Although she couldn’t quite remember everything she had packed in it yesterday morning – glob, that felt like so much longer ago –, she trusted something in it might be helpful.

However, she wasn’t quick enough, and before she could open its folds, she felt the _magic_ , whatever that meant, completing its trick. At the last second, she shared a frightening look with Gunther, who had apparently walked closer to her cell and now stared at her with empty dark eyes. He quacked loudly, and for a second everything disappeared but her, the backpack on her lap and the golden key in her right palm.

“Oh.”

She remained still for a few seconds as she gathered what she could from the experience she had just gone through. One second she was in a cell in the Ice Kingdom, and now she appeared to be in a wide, dark underground cave. The change of temperature itself was overwhelming, she thought as she sent one eye to the key. _Teleportation device_ , she wondered, twisting it between two fingers. If so, how did it work? She couldn’t wait to figure it out.

In the meantime, though, she mostly had to find out where she had teleported to.

“Well, that’s an interesting turn of events.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Banana guards”, Peppermint Butler spoke with a solemn and calm voice, despite the anguish that crushed his insides. “Your Princess –”

He stopped himself. Surely that pronoun and the distance it implied wasn’t the best way to gather the courage of the troops and, most importantly, to guarantee his authority on them in the near future.

“Our dear Princess…”, he corrected, refraining a smile as he felt confidence starting to burn in the midst of his guts, despite the strange circumstances he had found himself in. “…Has disappeared.”

A few seconds of silence followed his revelation while he allowed fear to run through the ranks, knowing better than to rush his speech. He had always thought himself to be quite the manipulative schemer, and this would prove an interesting exercise to test just how far his abilities could take him.

“She has last been seen entering the Ice Kingdom”, he paused, already relishing in the taste of the panic that was surely to follow his next words. “In the arms of a vampire.”

A few Banana guards started crying, but Peppermint Butler was prepared for all outcomes. At a decisive movement of his hands, a few trusted henchmen started distributing tissues amongst the ranks, the small gesture proving his leadership or, in the very least, reassuring the desperate army that lay before him. Strengthened in his resolve, Peppermint’s fist hit against the hard surface of the royal podium, the violent sound echoing against the walls of the Royal Hall.

“We cannot let this pass. We won’t let the Ice King and the vampires of this land terrify us anymore! We are Candy, and we are a proud and strong people!”

There was an awkward silence and for a second, Peppermint Butler wondered if he was pushing too far, but it was only a matter of seconds before he decided he could not stop anyway, not when he was so close.

“Candies, unite!”

Spread across the ranks, his henchmen repeated the words as a whisper. It sounded almost like a prayer when the first Banana guards joined in, but it was definitely a chant of courage and victory when all voices started shouting. Never the Royal Hall had been so loud, so filled with desperate energy. Over the castle walls, Candy citizens quickly shared the news, and as the tale traveled throughout the kingdom, they rejoiced in their newfound cause. Only an hour after the speech in Royal Hall, an impressive crowd had already gathered below the tallest tower of the castle.

“Peppermint! Peppermint! Peppermint!”

And he smiled, for truly, a butler had never achieved such greatness before.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Something was rumbling behind her, and even though it wasn’t discreet, it still didn’t make enough noise for the Princess to decipher the threat she was coming up against. Swiftly, she picked up a heavy rock from the ground before her, lifting it above her head as she sprung around, ready to throw it at whatever monster that was preparing to attack. She frowned as she couldn’t see anyone or anything new –that is, until she noticed something was moving the top fold of her backpack from the inside out.

Stone still safely held between her two hands, she took a step forward, only to jump back when a creature emerged from the confines of her green bag. Flapping its wings against its frail body, the bat flew in circles in the cavern’s cavity. Just as the princess was about to let go of her weapon, the animal started growing in shape, its body contorting its physical traits until it was almost too big to be contained within the rock walls where Bubblegum had been teleported only a few minutes ago.

Surprised by the sudden transformation, the pink monarch threw the rock at the creature, quickly bending to grab another.

“Ow! What the lump?”

As the whiny voice seemed familiar, Bubblegum stopped in her movement, refraining from throwing another stone at the creature’s head. As if it couldn’t care less, the vampire stretched both arms and legs as it yawned lazily.

“Yeah, ‘t’s me. Don’t worry, I’m here to resc– woa what?”

The realisation that they weren’t in the Ice Kingdom anymore surprised Marceline enough to switch her back to her usual appearance in a matter of seconds. Mouth remaining stupidly opened, she looked around, clearly uncertain of what exactly was going on.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you here to rescue me?”, the Princess spoke with both condescension and frustration. She really didn’t like being startled. “I kinda took care of that part.”

“Yeah, I got that…” the vampire replied, distracted while she scratched the back of her neck in confusion. As she floated near the entrance of the cave, she gazed down at the maze and its breathtaking sight. “Where on Ooo are we?”

“Endless Labyrinth of Doom”, the Princess answered candidly, as if it couldn’t be more obvious.

“Okay”, Marceline tried, still taken aback by the unexpected trip but never the less struggling to make sense of the new situation. “And what are we doing here?”

“Well, you’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”

The pink monarch had thrown her green backpack on her shoulders and was already heading down a path that seemed to lead to the entrance of the maze.

“Yeah, like you’re not”, Marceline argued, even though she obediently followed behind her friend. “Hey, here’s another; dude, where’s your crown?”


	15. Challenges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Uhh, maybe you should, I don’t know, hold on?”

“ _Welcome to the Endless Labyrinth of Doom: Your Reward Is Your Life_ ”, Marceline read aloud. “Sounds like fun for the whole family, huh?”

Her attempt at humor was met only with serious stares from the princess, and so she refrained from continuing her gag by adding that she had been waiting for such an excuse to get away. Somehow, she didn’t feel like pushing her luck, and it seemed as she was the only one taking their situation lightly. Ever since Bubblegum had realised her crown hadn’t made the trip from the Ice Kingdom to here, she had been all angry eyes and silent brooding. Marceline had tried joking around, humming cheerfully and flying in circles around the pink monarch; so far, no attempt at pulling the princess out of her thoughts had been successful.

While the vampire was entertaining herself with her jokes over the welcome sign, an annoyed Bubblegum had thrown her backpack on the ground in front of her and was running her hands through the contents, clearly searching for something in particular.

“Whatcha lookin’ for?”, Marceline asked, but once again she was being thoroughly ignored until a flash of joy spread across the monarch’s face.

Not even refraining her clichéd “ah-ah!”, the pink princess pulled out a notepad and a pencil from her backpack, as if it were the most important thing in the world.

“You’re going to take notes?”, the vampire questioned, one eyebrow rising as she crossed her arms in front of her, floating between her friend and the maze.

“It’s a labyrinth, ya’ goof”, Bonnibel argued while she sprung around the weight of her bag, the green backpack comfortably landing on both her shoulders. Fingers firmly anchored on its straps, she walked towards heading for the main entrance, purposefully ignoring Marceline, even though she stood directly in her way. “We’re going to map it out.”

Reluctantly, the grey girl moved aside, allowing the princess to go forward, and quickly followed behind. The vampire didn’t like the idea of entering what was obviously a giant tourist trap, but she had already flown to every corner of the upper cavern and had not succeeded in finding a way out. The exit had to be somewhere in the maze, because they clearly couldn’t go back the way they came. Or could they?

“Hey, seriously”, Marceline tried. “How did we get here?”

Standing at a crossroad, the Princess wrote a few things on her notepad before she lifted her head to answer. Plunging her hand into her pocket, she pulled out the golden key, holding onto the object carefully even though she only used two fingers. Remembering too well the strange and unpleasant sensation that had started in the middle of her palm last time, she thought she wasn’t being too cautious.

“I think it’s a teleportation device”, she offered, waving off Marceline’s hand when she tried to grab it.

“How does it work?”

“I don’t know”, Bubblegum sighed, returning the key to her pocket before she headed left, eyes staring at the empty corridor with scrutiny, not needing to look behind to know that the vampire was following her.

“Can we use it to get out?”, the grey girl eagerly asked.

“I don’t know”, the pink monarch repeated, refraining from rolling her eyes even though Marceline wouldn’t be in a position to see her annoyed gesture anyway. Glob, would she ever shut her mouth?

“Have you tried?”

The question brought the princess to a clear stop, and the vampire didn’t need to see Bonnibel’s face to know that she had pushed her over the edge of annoyance and into pure frustration. Still, the pink monarch swung around, staring at her friend as she yelled.

“Glob, are you ever going to be done? I. Do. Not. Know!”

The voice echoed against the walls of the maze, and suddenly a red pinch of guilt appeared on the princess’s cheeks as she heard her own words thrown back at her.

“Okay, sheesh… calm down Bubblegum”, the vampire spoke, slight irritation in her voice. After all, she was only trying to help, and if they were stuck there, it certainly wasn’t her fault.

“Don’t tell me to calm down”, the pink girl replied, although she obviously seemed to have tempered down her frustrations. “Something’s going on here. I need to think.”

She sent her eyes to her notepad, even though what she had scribbled down was to no use in this moment – she was simply trying to get a sense of familiarity as she focused. Something was definitely not right, and she had too many pieces of the puzzles missing to see the big picture, but if she could just –

“Um, Princess?”

The vampire’s interruptions had to stop. Couldn’t she see that Bonnibel was busy?

“Be quiet! I’m thinking!”, she ordered, not lifting her eyes as she continued her reflections.

“Yeah, but –”, Marceline started explaining, but suddenly decided she didn’t have the time. Placing both hands on Bubblegum’s shoulders, she swiftly turned her around, the sudden 180 degree forcing the monarch to lift her head and finally see what the fuss was all about.

From the end of the corridor, a giant boulder was headed their way, crushing down everything in its path as its speed increased. _Uhh_ , Bonnibel thought. _I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed the downward angle of the floor_.

“Run!”

The princess ordered before she started doing so herself, hoping she could reach the crossroad they had just arrived from. In her panic, she didn’t remember from which way they had arrived, and the thought of being entirely lost in here still did not compare with the sheer fright of being turned into a bubble gum pancake on the maze’s dirty floor. It simply wasn’t a dignified way to go.

As she reached the corner, she sent one look behind her, only to finally notice that the vampire hadn’t followed at all. Instead, she had remained directly in the boulder’s path and simply floated, like a butterfly about to be crushed. Bonnibel felt a burst of fear exploding in her stomach, and as she opened her mouth to scream, the vampire’s form expanded, turning her into a giant furry monster with enormous claws.

The sight itself would’ve been enough material for a thousand nightmares, if Bubblegum were anywhere near the age she told everyone she was. Instead, she stared in awe as her friend closed her enormous black fist, throwing a powerful punch towards the huge boulder that threatened to crush her out of existence.

Fighting the urge to close her eyes, the pink monarch stared as monstrous knuckles hit hard rock, and even as the rock partly crumbled under the shock and finally immobilized, she still could not believe her eyes.

 Turning around slowly, the creature sent her a wide smile covered in white pointy teeth.

“You were saying, B?”

The taunt was obvious, and this time, the princess did not repress her eye roll.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was a beautiful and very uncommon sight; before him, a hundred armed-to-the-teeth candy citizens, mixed with a few dozens of Banana guards, held a strong defensive position. The closed ranks, the stunning silence, the reverence of if all brought the most surprising pleasure to Peppermint, who hid his bliss behind a serious stare. As they were on the brink of the Ice King’s territory, on the verge of waging a war he had no certainty of winning, there was no time to bask in the incredible accomplishments he had achieved in the last few hours.

Standing on a tall podium before his newly formed army, he cleared his throat, embracing proudly with one last gaze the result of his recent propaganda.

“Fellow soldiers”, he started, knowing how important it was that they believed he was one of them. “We are here today to make history.”

Under the reign of Princess Bubblegum, the Candy population had progressively and consistently grown, from a small camp to an entire kingdom, and even though she and her people were now known throughout the land of Ooo, they had never been a force to be reckoned with. Today, all of it was going to change, Peppermint thought as he confidently continued his speech.

“Too long, we have remained passive”, he declared, closing his tiny hands into fists. “The Door Lords steal from us; vampires invaded the castle we built with our own hands. We are being mocked even in Lumpy Space! But no more!”

The crowd gasped at his words, encouraging him to shout even louder.

“No more!”

He opened his mouth to repeat it one last time, hoping to shake up the soldiers who now appeared entirely stunned before him. Peppermint Butler didn’t have time to speak again before a finger tapped on his shoulder, annoyingly insisting for his attention.

“Do you mind?”, the candy answered with irritation as he turned around, the protest dying on his lips as he recognised the Ice King.

As if only Peppermint’s stare had kept the army from moving up until now, his shift triggered an alarmed response from his soldiers, who ran away with screams of panic and cries begging for mercy. The old wizard only smiled, keeping his eyes on the little Candy dictator in front of him.

“You don’t scare me, Ice King”, the butler spoke without losing his composure, despite the chaos going on behind him.

Floating above the ground, the sorcerer simply raised his hands to conjure three evil snowmen, which immediately started to chase after the few candy citizens that had been left behind by the others. Not bothering to worry about the safety of his people, Peppermint crossed his arms.

“I’m not leaving until you give us back our princess!”

His demand was met with an incredulous stare from the Ice King, who backed away a few feet, as if he didn’t understand what he was talking about. Then, in a matter of seconds, a wicked grin appeared on his face, and he laughed diabolically.

“You mean you don’t know?”

The King’s question was only followed by more laughter, and behind him, Peppermint heard the snowmen joining their leader in his cheerful outburst. He refrained his body from shivering, remembering it would shatter his authority to show weakness, even though there were no more Candy citizens to witness such an act. Still, bravely, he stepped forward.

“Know what?”

Silence immediately returned to the piece of land where they stood, staring at each other as if they were about to fight a duel. Without turning around, Peppermint already knew that the snowmen had disappeared, their usefulness now vanished. With no other soul around but him and the butler, the Ice King suddenly looked sad for a few seconds before he regained his composure.

“Oh, little candy…”, the old wizard spoke with a mischievous grin. “Your precious Bubblegum was stolen from here hours ago.”

“How?”, the Candy asked immediately, wondering why, if she truly had managed to leave the Ice Kingdom, his sovereign hadn’t come home yet.

“A vampire took her”, Ice King answered with a shrug. He started to float back towards his tower but quickly stopped, turning around swiftly to see that Peppermint hadn’t moved yet. “Here, I don’t like having girl stuff lying around in my crib, it scares the hotties away.”

With that sentence, he threw something towards the butler before disappearing into the cold blue sky. The Candy’s reflexes grabbed the object so quickly that it wasn’t until he stared at it that he understood the importance of what he was holding; Princess Bubblegum’s crown.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“How did you make it work the first time?”

Marceline’s question dragged Bubblegum’s mind out of her thoughts and she blinked, not understanding what the vampire was going on about this time.

“What?”

The princess stopped walking, and pulled her eyes away from the map that now filled a few pages of her notepad – the doodles not helping them in the slightest, for now anyway. In the last hour, they had avoided being killed by tiny poisonous arrows, a statue throwing fireballs and giant axes that dropped from the ceiling. They had also gone over a bouncy bridge surrounded by dangerously sharp spikes, flown above a large pit of quicksand and swam in waters crawling with piranhas. Needless to say, she couldn’t wait to get out of this damn labyrinth, and her patience was running thin.

Eyebrows raised and arms crossed, she waited for Marceline’s answer, evidently ready to yell at her if she did not have a pertinent point to make.

“Maybe the gold key is, well, the key to all this, right?”, the vampire awkwardly asked, scratching the back of her neck nervously. Even though she was having quite a lot of fun poking the dangers that lied in the maze, it was clear that the monarch found no pleasure in the adventure; thus, she had tried to stay out of her way. However, the question just kept bugging her, and so she had to ask. “How did you make it work?”

“I just held it in my hands”, the princess answered with a sigh. Without proper lab equipment, there was no way she could figure out the mechanics of the teleportation device; it was no use. Still, she pulled it out of her pocket, letting it rest gently into her palm.

“Well, you did something else too, ‘cause nothing’s going on right now”, the vampire insisted, and was rewarded by an annoyed stare.

“Yeah, I got that”, Bubblegum snapped back, frustrated that she was once again wasting her time while Glob-knows-what was happening in her kingdom.

“Come on, what did you do?”, Marceline asked again, her tone more gentle even though she, too, was starting to lose patience.

“Nothing! I just – I thought I wanted to get out of there and – woa…”

Again, a strange itch started in the midst of Bonnibel’s palm, as if the key was suddenly becoming intensely warm. She gasped as pink sparkles bounced off her skin, recognising the same _magic_ – for lack of a better word – that had happened the first time around. Looking up to Marceline, she frowned.

“Uhh, maybe you should, I don’t know, hold on?”

She offered her hand out, but the vampire rushed to her side, pulling her into a strong embrace as she sneaked both of her arms around the princess. The key still in one hand, Bubblegum placed the other around Marceline’s waist, holding onto her as firmly as she could. When the world around them turned black, as it had once before in the ice cavern, Bonnibel closed her eyes, afraid to find out where they were going to reappear.

“Okay, where are we?”, the pink monarch asked, keeping her eyelids shut as she felt the vampire slowly letting go of their embrace.

“Aww B, you are not going to be happy about this”, Marceline simply spoke from a few feet away.

Immediately opening her eyes, Bubblegum didn’t need more than a second to know exactly where they were, and although they now understood what the key did, it obviously was not helpful in the long run. Sighing heavily, she stepped forward to stand by the vampire’s side, staring down the depressing landscape that lay before them. Finding herself once again in the small cavity where they had first teleported, Princess Bubblegum felt utterly defeated.

“It’s a reset button”, she explained, although it was clear that Marceline had already gathered as much. “We’re back at the start.”


	16. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Pff, please; you’re the one who follows me around.”

If Marceline had been walking, her feet would have been killing her. They had been running in circles for hours now, and even though Bubblegum’s map kept expanding, they still hadn’t found a way out of this lumping maze. Feeling her stomach tightening under an all too familiar pressure, she shrugged. Hunger had started nesting in her gut ever since they had crossed an enormous room filled with giant fruits – which had no raspberries nor strawberries, and only green apples.

To the vampire, the situation suddenly appeared very, very clear; this place’s only purpose was to drive people nuts. Much to her dislike, it was succeeding pretty well so far.

Both girls turned the corner, sighing simultaneously when they noticed the road onward. A few meters ahead, an Old World airplane blocked the path, its blown-out parts spread across the ground. Behind the aircraft’s wreckage, little mountains of debris obstructed the way forward, strange dark green vines running over the remains of a lost civilization.

Bubblegum took one look at her map before she stared at Marceline, who immediately understood; they had tried all previous paths and had no choice but to go through those ruins. The vampire stretched her arms and cracked her neck before she closed her eyes.

Taking in a deep breath, her body rapidly morphed; fur quickly grew out of her pores while her fingers retreated into her hands to become paws, then her nose bulked out, turning into a muzzle. When Marceline finally exhaled, it wasn’t a normal, teenage girl standing by Bonnibel’s side: a large black panther had taken her place, and the animal prowled around the pink monarch, its side brushing against her legs as it passed by.

Smiling, Princess Bubblegum held out her hand, patting the creature’s back before she clutched on both sides of its neck, bestriding the beast as if it was nothing but usual. She adjusted herself onto the panther, trying to find the right balance to hang on tightly without harming it. Lowering her upper body to rest more comfortably, she signaled she was safe and ready to depart with a slight pressure of her heels on Marceline’s waist.

Immediately, the wildcat sprung ahead, running through the Old World wreckage quickly and efficiently, its bold movements translating into a strange pull and push for the princess riding on its back. As it jumped over the carcass of a broken down automobile, Bubblegum felt her grasp onto the creature’s fur loosening, throwing her off balance. Afraid she was going to fall off, she tightened the pressure of her legs around Marceline, her feet inadvertently kicking her sides in the process. A small whimper of pain reached Bonnibel’s ears.

“Sorry”, she apologized in the creature’s ear. Shifting her position, the pink monarch laid down on the panther’s back and wrapped both of her arms around the beast’s neck, allowing her to relieve the pressure on Marceline’s body while remaining safely in place. In this position, the princess found the constant movements of Marceline’s muscles under her much less nauseating than before; as a matter of fact, it had actually became quite pleasant. Adjusting her breathing to match the rhythmic of her running paws, she felt a satisfying rush of adrenaline waving through her veins, her heart skipping a beat at every jump.

After a few more minutes scampering around the debris, they reached the end of the devastated zone almost regretfully. The black panther lifted its upper paws, standing on its hind legs as it allowed the princess to swiftly slide down to return to her feet.

Returning to her usual form with a slight shudder, Marceline sprung around, smiling as she noticed that already, Bonnibel had taken out the notepad from her backpack, tracking down their progress so far and planning the road ahead. As they stood at a crossroad, they stared down both paths; darkened and empty, both corridors appeared equally dangerous.

“It’s your turn”, the pink monarch offered, gesturing between the two choices ahead.

“Here”, Marceline simply said, grabbing Bubblegum’s hand to pull her forward into the left path.

Only the sound of their footsteps echoed between the walls as they walked in silence, until the princess tripped over the bones of an ogre’s skeleton.

“Ewww”, she complained, letting go of Marceline’s hand to rid her clothes of the spider webs that had glued themselves onto her.

Suddenly realising that they had been holding hands for more than a few minutes, both girls felt the red shade of embarrassment spreading over their cheeks as they purposefully ignored one another. Walking onward down the path more eagerly, as if trying to put actual distance between them and _that_ – whatever _that_ was –, they reached another crossroad, barely exchanging words before they continued.

“Why would the Ice King have a key to transport him here, though?”, Bonnibel asked aloud, trying to get rid of the awkwardness between them by concentrating on more intellectual puzzles.

“Hm, what?”, Marceline asked, barely looking at her friend, still struggling with the hunger that had seemingly quadrupled since her metamorphosis.

“I stole the key from the Ice King”, the princess reminded her, and as she spoke, it suddenly made absolutely no sense; why would he have a teleportation device to begin with? Sure, he was a meanie, but why would anyone want a key that could only send you to this maze?

“Right, it’s the one he had around his neck”, the vampire added, eyes locked onto the road ahead.

“You knew?”

Bubblegum had stopped walking, suddenly incredibly saddened by the idea that her friend could have been in it from the start. After all, she had not seemed very eager to help her escape the ice cavern earlier, and had apparently enjoyed most of this ordeal so far. Plus, if she hadn’t frozen in place when the avalanche had come their way, none of this would have happened…

Marceline continued forward for a few seconds before she realised that there weren’t any footsteps following her anymore. She turned around with a puzzled frown.

“What?”, she asked before she recalled the princess’s question. “Ugh! I didn’t know it would do _that_ ”, she gestured heavily, throwing her hands in the air. As she let the limbs return down to her side, she sighed with annoyance. “I was going to steal it; I thought it was the key to your cell.”

“Oh”, Bonnibel realised, somewhat ashamed she had jumped to conclusions so quickly. She looked down as she returned to Marceline’s side, but the vampire simply shrugged before she floated forward again. Now advancing side by side, the princess spoke again. “Hey, so uhm… you really did plan to rescue me?”

There was an obvious jolt of surprise across the grey girl’s features before it was replaced by an arrogant smirk.

“Yeah, nothing better to do”, she explained, shoulders rising as if to underline the fact that she could not care less. “But I sorta fell asleep in there.”

She pointed towards the green backpack, a smile peeking up on her lips as she winked.

“You’re an idiot”, Bonnibel teased gently. Her happy grin rapidly returned to a thoughtful frown as she remembered what had started the conversation in the first place. “But seriously, why would he have that key anyway?”

“He probably just found it somewhere and kept it”, Marceline answered. “Simon likes shiny things.”

“Simon?”

The name resonated against the walls and the vampire cursed her hunger once again, blaming it for the slip of her tongue.

“Ice King”, she rapidly replied. “I said the Ice King.”

“Riiiight”, Bubblegum said, eyes rolling in their sockets. Even though she was certain that she hadn’t misheard, she chose not to pursue the matter. Something else was tugging on the back of her genius brain, but her mind couldn’t focus on it right now. Better to start by getting the glob out of this nightmare of a place, and find answers later.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the deserted streets of the Candy Kingdom, night had fallen and brought along a cold harsh draft. Under the candy cane lampposts, the yellow city lights punctuated the way down the street, their rays brushing over the posters that now placated every wall of every building. Only the sound of wind waving through loose paper animated the empty roads; courtesy of newly ordered curfew.

Occupying the center of a bakery’s window, an image of Peppermint Butler proudly stared down whoever looked at it. Standing with a serious frown and pointing forward, the candy dictator glowed with severity and determination. Above his wincing eyes, in bold blue letters, a sentence started; “I want your sugar”, and under the tiny despot’s feet, it continued; “to support the war”.

Down the street, beside the hospital’s main entrance, another poster showed a round smiley face, two little triangles representing teeth adorning the straight line of the mouth. A doodle of a red cross had been drawn on it, as well as one of this conflict’s now most famous slogan; “A good vampire is a dead vampire – but like, seriously dead, not just undead”.

In their sleep, the Candy people wept for the kind ruler that had once been theirs, knowing that in the morning, all would be left was the horrifying and enthralling songs of war.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_The End_

Sharing a look, Marceline and Bonnibel wondered if this was a good or a bad thing. Eyes went from the wooden panel to the dark tunnel ahead and back to each other a few times as they pondered on their options. They could either go back to the rest of the maze to explore the few crossroads they hadn’t checked out yet, or they could enter the narrow passageway and hope for the best.

Finally, the vampire shrugged and dived in, quickly followed by the pink monarch.

“That could be a trap you know”, Bubblegum spoke, her voice somehow sounding deeper now that it was echoed on cold soil instead of rocky walls.

“I’ll take my chances”, Marceline carelessly answered before she stopped, turning her head around to stare at her friend. “You don’t have to follow me if you’re scared.”

The taunting voice made the pink girl wince.

“Pff, please; you’re the one who follows me around.”

“Yeah, right, you keep deluding yourself your Majesty”

“Shh”, the princess hushed as she heard the faint sounds of foreign voices, but Marceline was on a rant; “you came to me, remember? Twice, by the way, and –”

She stopped, seeing as Bubblegum had managed to squeeze herself by her side and now had her hand stuck on her mouth.

“Listen”, she said, and Marceline tried to comply even though she had trouble concentrating. She wondered if it was the hunger in her gut that made her want to pull the Princess even closer.

The two girls now entirely silent, barely breathing, they waited for the sounds to stop before they started crawling again, making their way slowly through the tunnel until they saw lights. They shared a quick look before they continued forward, reaching the end carefully. The voices they had heard earlier had returned, louder than they were before.

“Pff, see if I care”, a guy spoke, his words quickly followed by what sounded like a push or struggle.

“Get off me, stupid face!”, a younger voice argued, but his objections were undermined by the hopelessness laying in his tone.

Both girls lifted their heads, peaking discreetly into the next room.

Underneath them, in a dark cavern not unlike the rest of the maze, two guys were struggling amongst wooden crates. As one of them was thrown across the room, the shock of his body against a dangerously unsteady pile of crates sent one box falling down to the ground. The package shattered upon impact, its contents spilled on the soil; fresh raspberries squishing under the weight of the young boy’s frail figure.

“I hate you Kyle”, the kid who stood in the middle of the fruit carnage told the other with a defiant voice, although his face still seemed hesitant.

The other one took a step forward.

“Shut up”, he argued. “We gotta clean this up real fast”

They quickly busied themselves by trying to put the raspberries back into the broken up crate, and as the shy one focused on his work, the other one stepped aside, bringing a fistful of berries to his mouth – only he didn’t eat it exactly; he sucked the red out of it. Turning a frightened face towards Marceline, Bubblegum whispered;

“Vampires?”


	17. Breaking In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Need a hand?”

“Okay, what’s the plan?”, Princess Bubblegum whispered to her friend, her eyes locked on the two creatures in the room below them.

Marceline shrugged before she pushed herself forward, throwing her body out of the tunnel and floating down to meet the two vampires’ gazes.

“Hey y’all”, she said enthusiastically, waving her arm as if signaling old friends.

“Oh, great idea Marcie, I concur” Bonnibel sighed in one angry breath, still hidden from sight in the deep of the tunnel. “Thanks for sharing this brilliant strategy with me before we die!”

For a second she toyed with the idea of following her friend into the room, and then thought it better to remain out of sight. They were vampires after all – creatures that were not to be trusted, especially when you were essentially a being of pink bubble gum. With that in mind, she pulled herself closer to the edge, ducking on the ground as she focused on her breathing, hoping not to be detected.

“Woa, where did you come from?”, the older guy asked with a surprised voice, the crushed grey berries in his hands dripping to the floor as he stared down the stranger with an open mouth.

“Around”, Marceline gestured confidently before she crossed her arms in front of her. “Look, it’s not that we don’t like your place, but if you could point us to the nearest exit….”

“We?”, the younger vampire questioned, stepping forward with a curious frown.

Only now noticing she had not been followed, the grey girl sighed. She turned her head slightly, sending her eyes towards the barely noticeable overture under the ceiling.

“Bonnie, come on”, she urged her friend loudly. “We don’t got all night”

A pink face suddenly appeared, followed by a frail body carefully leaning out of a crack in the stone wall, up in the corner of the room. She climbed down slowly, fully aware that she was being watched by the three vampires below. The princess focused on her task, cursing Marceline and her not-so-well-thought plans under her breath. Her foot slipped on a rock and suddenly she found her friend by her side, floating with ease and smiling as if she hadn’t had a care in the world.

“Need a hand?”

The princess stubbornly refused, continuing her long way down as Marceline kept a skeptic eye on her.

“So, what, you got a walking-buffet following you around”, Kyle joked with a devious smile.

“What’s it to you, punk”, Marceline replied quickly, putting herself between her friend and the stranger.

“Nothing man”, he said as he moved to the side, his eyes leaving the grey girl to return to the pink monarch. “Just admiring the view”

Marceline’s cheeks became red.

“So, nearest exit?”, she asked again, this time staring at the younger one. He obviously seemed more cooperative and wasn’t busy ogling on her friend like a perv.

“Uh, that way”, he pointed to a wall, dumbfounded.

Behind her, Marceline heard Bubblegum reaching the floor, her quick footsteps bringing her to her side.

“Through the wall?”, the pink monarch asked, crossing her arms in front of her, unaware that she had just mimicked her friend’s posture.

“What? No”, the boy replied, but he was cut short by the sound of a door opening, letting a tall grey man wearing a blue suit and another teenager through.

“Well well, what have we got here”, the man spoke, fingers fiddling with a cigar as his eyes stared at the pink girl.

Again, Marceline found herself floating between her friend and a stranger with a challenging look in her eyes. The atmosphere in the room had changed from playful to menacing, and even though she usually appreciated that shift – she was never one to back down from an adventure – the idea of having brought Bonnibel in the middle of it worried her.

“Princess Bubblegum herself!”

She wasn’t sure why it came as a surprise that her friend would be recognized; after all, as Ooo royalty, she was one of the most famous people around the land. Still, it seemed out of place, the way the man had spoken her name, and she didn’t know what to make of it, but it had triggered a defensive mechanism inside her, and once again she felt ready for a fight.

When four goons walked in, her confident attitude deflated.

“We heard so much about you…”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was a bit late for tea, but Hunson Abadeer didn’t mind. He rarely had visitors from other realms, and always welcomed his guests with the same ritual – he lit up the fireplace, threw in a few souls and warmed up a kettle. There was something about sharing tea over the cries of damned creatures, their existence burning away while the tea leaves infused with water, which seemed so _right_.

“You’ve come a long way, old friend”, he said as he sat down, gesturing toward the empty chair by his side, silently allowing his guest to take a seat.

The dark figure complied slowly, the small porcelain cup held between its two pink fingers.

“That, I did.”

“And to what do I owe the pleasure?”, Hunson asked, one hand extending out the window to grab another one of his peasants. As he threw the screaming demon into the fire, sparkles flew around the fireplace, deepening his smile. “Surely this isn’t a social call...”

“As always, Mister Abadeer, you are right”, the man in the dark cloth answered, twisting his body to face the Lord of the Nightosphere. “I need a place to stay for a while.”

The words hovered in the silent room for a few seconds.

“I thought you had built yourself quite a palace, in Ooo”, Abadeer replied, eyes now stuck into the fire as he pondered the reasons why this old friend of his would suddenly resurface after so many years apart.

“Yes, that much is also true”, the figure agreed again. “However, things in Ooo haven’t been as… peaceful, as I’d hope.”

That word triggered something inside him. Trouble in Ooo? That land had always been so well balanced; the walls between the two realms had forever remained thick.

“Trouble in paradise?”, he asked, feigning carelessness even though he now found himself entirely intrigued by the new developments. If Ooo fell into chaos, then the walls would weaken and fall apart, and then maybe the spells necessary to cross from one world to another would allow passage for more than one or two creatures at a time…

“It does seem so”, the man spoke again, taking a sip from his tea before he continued. “The Candy Kingdom is at war with the vampire race”

The words had not fallen into a deaf ear.

“Hmm”, was the only answer Abadeer could gather forming. Already his mind drew the possibilities. Expanding the Nightosphere to another realm had always been a dream of his, but the chaotic forces necessary for such an invasion had never truly formed in the worlds surrounding his.

 _Until now_ , he smiled with an evil grin.

 

 

* * *

 

 

An eye roll wasn’t enough to express how deeply annoyed Princess Bubblegum was. She tried to accompany it with a long sigh, but it still didn’t seem right. She paced around the room, hands closed into fists, mumbling her thoughts and keeping her gaze on the cavern floor, avoiding looking at the two guards that stood at both sides of her cell door. In the corner, a drop of water fell every eight seconds, and it was driving her mad.

Being locked up in a prison again was definitely not the plan. Then again, she thought with sheer exasperation, of course Marceline hadn’t had a plan to begin with: just like she had done with most obstacles in the labyrinth, she had ran into trouble without a care in the world, and now had obviously abandoned Bonnibel behind to enjoy herself with her new friends.

Her new _vampire_ friends.

“Well, your Majesty, I don’t know how or why you are here, but as I always say, we have to make the best of a bad situation…”

The stranger’s voice still rang in her ears as she tried to remember the few pieces of information she had gathered. By the feared looks he received from his goons, the blue suit and the cigar, she realised he was probably Don Vito, so-called King of the vampires. In the centuries of her reign on the Candy Kingdom, she had heard of him many times, but had never met him. Despite the fact that he had invented a regal background to his claims of power, he had never attended a meeting of Ooo royalty; he seemed uninterested to pursue control over land. Don Vito had never involved his clan of thieves and bullies into the major conflicts that had happened within the course of the decades; vampires, in the end, did nothing more than bad pranks and petty crimes here and there, content to cause little waves of chaos in every kingdom they randomly entered.

Apparently, things had now changed, and there was a war against the undead creatures, and it involved her beloved Candy citizens. Again, fear tugged at her heart, but she pushed it aside, juggling the information she had so far and trying to understand the odd situation she found herself stuck in.

“You see, we’ve been accused of holding you prisoner, which is funny because you look like no prisoner to me… Are you though?”

Don Vito’s creepy smile had been followed by Marceline’s strong “No!”, but of course, the man had not been talking to her, and so he did not bother replying to her claims that she had not been holding the pink monarch against her will. At that precise moment, Bubblegum had known even before she had seen the prison cell, that she would be kept somewhere in the depth of the caves, and that once again, she would have to find her way out of holding bars.

“To me, you look more like a hostage.”

And then Don Vito had snapped his fingers and she had lost consciousness, only to wake up here, with a major headache, a furious hunger and an impossible urge to constantly roll her eyes.

In a cell of twelve foot by fourteen, she was under the silent surveillance of two guards; one that had a limp and a stick, another missing an arm and holding a sword. She recognized the latter from earlier; it was the young boy who had been fighting with… Kyle, was it? She had to gather as much intel as she could if she wanted to break out of here, which is why she counted how many vampires she had met here so far; three teenagers, four goons, Don Vito himself and this limping guard brought the total to nine.

And that was excluding Marceline, which was probably naïve of her, Bonnibel thought. If the Candy kingdom was at war with the vampires, could she really hope that her new friend would pick her side?

So, ten vampires, then.

And her backpack was nowhere in sight.

_Great._


	18. A Sense of Belonging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are one of us.”

It was a close call between the turquoise carpet with diamond patterns and the orange and purple lava lamps, and it took her more than a few looks to decide. In the end, though, the giant poster of a lion ready to pounce won the contest of what decorating article what the most horrifyingly ugly. Marceline had rolled her eyes so hard in their socket it had actually hurt, but it was worth it nonetheless. _What a bunch of creeps._

After two goons had escorted an unconscious Bonnibel to a prison cell, the grey girl had thought she was going to get the most epic fights of all times; her, against three teenagers and two big guys – she didn’t count the man who appeared to be their boss, since he was most likely to just stand aside and watch. When they hadn’t threatened her, she realised they didn’t consider her their enemy or their hostage: she was, after all, a vampire like the rest of them. Therefore, they had asked her to follow them here, where everything would be explained – or so they kept saying.

What she really wanted to be enlightened on now, though, was how one could be the leader of a badass gang of vampires, and have such a ridiculous taste.

“You don’t like the décor, Marceline?”

She really didn’t, but she simply shrugged. After all, it wasn’t her personal chambers, it was this creep’s, and if he wanted to live as if the worst interior designer in the history of the universe had threw up on every wall, it was his choice.

“You don’t know who I am.”

The sentence brought the grey girl’s attention back to him: the man in the suit had lighted his cigar and stared at her with a puzzling look; never had he met a vampire who had not heard of him. It wasn’t as if his story was the most legendary tale across Ooo, but still, in the shadows of the night, everybody knew he was King, and it had been centuries since he last had to fight to gain the respect he rightfully deserved.

“Some dude with bad taste and a huge ego?”

Obviously, it wasn’t the expected answer, and it sent a wave of incredulity amongst the few people present in the room. Marceline basked in the surprise; there was nothing she liked more than an insult that hit its target. Studying the man’s response, she realised that even though her words had a powerful effect on the stranger’s followers, it had none on him. Nevertheless, she was proud of her, and she smirked, waiting for a reply. It took a few seconds to come, and in that time, her stomach started rumbling again, bringing red to her cheeks as she silently wished nobody had heard her guts screaming in hunger.

“I am Don Vito”, he stated with a low voice that glowed with authority and power, “King of the Vampires.”

_Oh_ , Marceline thought. _This is new_.

“Okay, well, _Vito_ ”, she said his name with disgust and condescension, “how about you let my friend and I go, so I don’t have to kick your butt?”

There was something lurking behind the man’s pupils, but the grey girl couldn’t guess what. She was busy running scenarios in her head; if she threw one of the lamps on the guy to her right, maybe she’d have enough time to get out and lock them in. Then, she would only have to find Bonnie and get out of here, but she still had no idea of where they had taken her, and if the vampires’ hideout was anything like the maze that had led them to it, she would never find her in time.

“Your _friend_?”

His question was followed with a dark laugh, and the other guys joined him wholeheartedly until he raised his fist, silencing them in a quick gesture.

“Her Kingdom is waging war against us, child”, he spoke with hate and revulsion. “Her people are trying to kill every one of us and you think of her as a friend?”

Marceline wanted to answer that she wasn’t afraid of a few Candy citizens taking up arms, but there was such fear that radiated from the other vampires that she kept her mouth shut. A frown had slipped onto her face and she was trying to decipher whether Don Vito was playing her or not.

“You are one of us”, the man in the suit simply stated before he waved his hand.

Behind the teenage girl, the door opened, and it took her a few seconds to understand that he was ending the conversation and allowing her to leave.

“I’m free to go?”

Scepticism spread across her features, Marceline waited for the trap that would grasp her any minute now, expecting to be knocked out unconscious like her friend had been, only a few moments before.

“Of course”, Don Vito replied with a sigh. “I told you child; you’re one of us.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hands on her thighs, Princess Bubblegum stared at the ceiling with one eyebrow raised. On the horizontal surface, the almost imperceptible patch of water formed a small drop. She watched as it fell down, following its plummet until it reached the floor. There, instead of the constant drip that had driven her insane in the last few hours, she heard nothing. The bead had splashed into the folds of the small mountain of blankets she had created from her bedding, and she smiled, satisfied with the result as she returned to her bunk bed.

Now that this problem was solved, she had to tackle the second one, and maybe then she would be able to enjoy some quietness.

“That’s not even a thing”, the young boy whined, kicking a rock with the tip of his shoe.

“Sure it is”, the older guard replied with a low voice, stretching his arms as if he had just awoken from a deep sleep.

Evidently, he had been awake ever since they had brought Bubblegum to this jail cell; he had been conversing non-stop with his colleague for a while. Even though they had first appeared to take their duties very seriously, standing immobile and in silence at both sides of the gate, the two guards now continuously shared crazy stories about impossible creatures, apparently trying to fight boredom with storytelling and non-stop arguments.

“Nuh-uh”, the young vampire protested once more. “You’re just trying to scare me.”

Bubblegum had been uninterested by this particular tale as soon as she had realised that the older guard was pulling the other one’s leg; obviously there was no giant spider that solely ate vampires and lived in a nearby forest. However, now that she had gotten rid of the constant noise of the water drop, there was still the annoying banter of the two guards in the way of much needed silence; she had to find a way to shut them up. Therefore, it wasn’t with enthusiasm that she participated in the conversation, sitting cross-legged on her bunk bed with her back against the wall.

“He is lying. I killed that spider a long time ago.”

The boy turned around with fear and surprise in his eyes. Resting both of his hands against the bars, he leaned in, so intrigued that he forgot his entire training – if he ever had one.

“You did?”

The Princess sighed as she brushed the back of her hand against her thigh, as if she was brushing off the dirt that had gathered on her clothes. To her annoyance list, she added the fact that she hadn’t had a proper shower in days – if you didn’t count Marceline dropping a bucket of water over her head to extinguish a hallucinated fire. Again, she cursed that dang labyrinth and its ridiculous challenges.

“Yeah. No big deal. T’was spitting webs around the pass through the mountains, and I had a merchant treaty with the Shoe Kingdom to uphold, so…”

She raised her head, noticing the effect of her words on both her captors; the boy was impressed, but the old guard definitely wasn’t.

“She’s pulling your leg, Tommy.”

The young vampire didn’t look at his colleague, keeping all of his attention on Bubblegum as he frowned; obviously, he was starting to have a few doubts about her heroics.

“I’m telling the truth, but you’re not”, the Princess spoke to the old man. “There’s no way we’re close to the Bug Forest, and that’s where it lived.”

“Of course not, he’s talking about the Sundae Woods”, the boy clarified before he received a hit behind his head. “Ow, what?”

“You’re not supposed to tell her where our hideout is, you idiot!”

“Well she already knows if she’s here, old man!”

With this little slip of the tongue and the argument that followed, Bubblegum’s incessant brain quickly formed a new plan. Maybe, since there was no way to shut them up, she could use this petty rivalry to her advantage. This new little admirer of hers could be helpful.

She smirked diabolically as she stared at her two guards, both still too invested in their conversation to notice the dangerous pink eyes that landed on them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A siren blazed across the cold morning, shattering the quiet ambiance of the earlier hours. The streets remained as empty as they were a minute before, but inside Mr Toffee’s bakery, the reaction was as immediate as it was precise. The few candy citizens aligned themselves perfectly in front of the long table, ready to return to work. Their tiny hands immediately galvanized, they returned to their important task with sweat running down their concentrated faces. Despite the heat and the humidity of the room, the candy people worked in perfect unison, whistling joyfully as each of them completed their particular part of the job.

At one hand of the table, Blue Jelly Bean poured a huge spoonful of a strange brown mixture into two large metal plates before pushing them towards his right. As if magically, another pair of brass plates appeared in front of him, and he repeated the exercise. On his side, Chocolate Bar Guy assembled the two parts of the mould together before placing it in an oven behind him. There, Chocoberry waited for the flames to extinguish before pulling it out and placing it in front of Green Jelly Bean. The candy opened the cast and patiently extricated the result; a gun made of toffee.

Although it seemed complete, it definitely wasn’t. Crunchy grabbed the device, eager to do his part. Into a side compartment, he gently dropped a hair of Lady Rainicorn before he passed the device along, where Punch Bowl pushed a small disco ball down the barrel. Finally, the weapon landed in Lollipop Girl’s station, where she welded it shut before she placed it in a large wooden box beside her.

Watching over the operation with a silent gaze, Mr Toffee observed the process being repeated over and over, and he smiled as he looked at the result. Peppermint Butler would be pleased. There, on his left, in various boxes, hundreds of sun-in-a-guns rested, waiting to be sent out to the battlefields.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 “Woa”, he spoke with sheer wonderment as he stared at the eight-eyed tentacle monster that took up half the space in the room. “You are one badass chick, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know that”, Marceline answered, both feet on the table as she lay back in the purple couch. The furniture threatening to break under her weight whined in protest, reminding her to return to her usual teenage form. In front of the awed wizard, she transformed back quickly, ending the process with a playful wink. It had been a while since someone was so impressed with her metamorphosing abilities.

“It’s awesome”, he repeated, taking a chair at the other side of the table and sitting backwards in it, so his elbows rested on its back, chin nested in his palms. “Magic is sooo awesome”

He had been praising her talents for a while now, and she was starting to appreciate it very much. Even though Marceline still wondered about Princess Bubblegum’s fate in all of this and the mentioning of a war going on, there was something to be said about compliments. Of course, she still had every intention of helping out her pink friend, but there was no harm in enjoying herself in the meantime. Therefore, she had been eating red, telling her heroic tales and showing off for the better part of the day.

Ever since her conversation with the King, a few vampires had come forward to meet her, and they had all been so welcoming and inclusive, she felt like she knew them already; like she belonged with them. Somehow, she couldn’t shake the thought that perhaps, she had finally found a place where she could truly be herself.

The wizard extended his hand as he offered his name, and she genuinely smiled back as she answered; “T’s nice to meet you, Ash.”


	19. Allegiances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You could've asked nicely."

Bubblegum focused on her breathing, trying to adjust its rhythm as she sat, legs crossed in the lotus position. There was only one guard remaining at the entrance of her jail; the small boy with the missing arm – Tommy? – had gone to get something to eat, and now the old man stood quietly, which allowed the pink monarch some liberty of thinking. Exhausted, she had decided meditation would be the best way to reach both goals: resting her body and clearing her mind. The calm silence that had fallen on her surroundings was truly a blessing.

“I hate you I hate you I hate you!”

Marceline’s voice rudely invaded the cavern before she appeared, pulling the princess out of her not-so-meditative state and forcing her to stand up. By a wave of the hand, the grey girl shooed the guard away, effectively leaving both girls alone without a word. The old man mumbled something about _young people nowadays_ as he slowly made his way towards the exit.

The sounds of the man’s cane hitting the floor became less and less audible; his snail pace allowing enough time for Bubblegum’s eyes to wander on her friend’s features as she hoped to understand what had thrown her into such a fit. Her torn clothes and the burns on her arms and neck, added to her messy hair and closed fists, underlined perfectly the fuming state of rage she was currently in.

When she noticed Marceline’s white teeth biting down on her lower lip, Bonnibel thought she should be terrified about the very possible death that lurked in her near-future if the vampire didn’t calm down. Should she be in her right mind, that would have been the case; however, she was currently utterly distracted by how Marcie looked absolutely adorable right now.

“What’s going on?”

The pink monarch interrogated her friend with a sigh, hoping to disguise her inappropriate thoughts by resting both hands on her hips in an authoritative stance.

“It’s your stupid kingdom and your stupid gun”, the vampire accused, although her voice cracked with hesitation, suddenly doubting her own anger in front of Bubblegum’s soft eyes. Her friend had never looked at her as gently as she did now – or if she had, she had not noticed. It was unsettling, to say the least.

“You went on the battlefield”, Bonnibel spoke, a slight interrogation behind her words, although she already knew the answer.

Disappointment skulked in her stomach, but she fought hard against herself in order to hide it from the vampire. Somehow, despite her better judgement and the lonely hours that had just gone by, a part of Bubblegum had continuously entertained the notion that Marceline was working on a way to get her out of this jail and back to her kingdom, safe and sound. Even though her logical mind had insisted the grey girl would most likely join her fellow vampires, there had been hope. Foolish, pointless hope.

“Yeah well, I had to see how stupid Candy people could beat awesome vampire butts, right?”

Over the centuries, Marceline had always managed to avoid tying any significant ties to the people of Ooo. She had traveled to every kingdom, going from one adventure to another, from one potential friend to another, leaving as soon as a serious connection developed. There were some people she didn’t mind going back to; the Duke of Nuts, her badass gang of ghosts, for example.

The warm welcome she had received from Don Vito’s gang made her feel a part of something; therefore, she hadn’t been able to resist staying a bit longer than necessary. Thinking there might be a way to remain friends with Bonnibel while joining the vampires’ family, Marceline had decided to check things out for herself and see how far the conflict between the two kingdoms had grown. Until she saw the battlefield with her own eyes, she had believed getting Bonnie back to her castle would end the war, but she knew that wasn’t an option anymore. The Candy people held too powerful an arsenal; surely the vampires wouldn’t back down from the fight just because a pink girl apologized on their behalf.

Besides, Princess Bubblegum didn’t look apologetic at all: standing in the middle of her jail cell and facing the vampire with something that seemed akin to defiance, the pink monarch smiled.

“What the glob? You think it’s funny?”

Marceline’s anger bubbled up inside her, growing fiercer than before. Knowing an outburst was close, a slight shade of red appeared on her cheeks, accompanied by an unknown sadness in the back of her eyes, but her wrath had printed itself on her features so widely that it was all Bubblegum could notice.

The princess – who had been thinking that it was, in fact, kind of awesome that her people could defend themselves for once – tried to end the joy she felt by focusing on her current predicament and on the grey girl’s betrayal. A pinch of hurt snapped deep in her stomach as she raised her eyes to meet her friend’s once more.

“No, Marceline”, she spoke calmly, as if trying to defuse a bomb. “I don’t think war is funny.”

“Well it’s your fault”, the vampire complained loudly, her behavior not far from being childlike as she closed her fists and floated closer to the jail bars. “Make it stop!”

The princess reached towards her friend in an attempt to comfort her, but perhaps it was because the gate didn’t allow for her to get closer to Marceline that Bubblegum’s frustration only raised from within her once again, forcing its way up her throat and into her mouth. The pink monarch angrily stepped forward nevertheless, body leaning against the bars and eyes never dropping her gaze from Marcie’s dark orbs.

“How is this _my_ fault”, Bubblegum protested, deeply annoyed. “I wasn’t even in my kingdom when it happened!”

She was right, of course, but Marceline’s anger was too far gone to stop. “They’re using the globbin’ gun you made”, the vampire spoke accusingly, extending her arm to show the burns she had suffered earlier that day. “So it’s _your_ fault!”

Bubblegum’s fingers automatically ran down on the grey skin, the tips brushing softly beside the wounds, tracing the pattern of the painful scorches while sadness and regret overcame the princess with a fear that she may be, in fact, accountable for her friend’s pain. However, the injuries reminded her of another time; one when she didn’t have to worry about Marceline’s feelings and motivations, and the anger crept back as quickly as it had disappeared. She let go of Marceline’s arm.

“A gun I had to make so I could take back my castle from you”, Bubblegum answered, crossing her arms in front of her. They had never spoken of it, that first night Marceline had invaded her kingdom and her life. The mystery surrounding her arrival had bothered the princess more than once, and perhaps it was foolish, but when remembering those events, Bonnibel couldn’t help from thinking that _Marceline started it_ , even though she didn’t know what _it_ was, exactly.

“You could’ve asked nicely”, Marceline spoke again, almost yelling in obvious frustration. “I just needed a place to stay!”

“ _You_ could’ve asked nicely”, Bubblegum angrily mirrored.

There was a silence as they stared down each other, an understanding passing between them as they both felt regret gradually replacing their anger. Seconds went by as they remained still; wordless, eyes locked in each other’s, wondering how they had gotten so far from where they had started. Contemplating the impossibility of going back.

“Why did you freeze when you saw the avalanche on Candid Mountain?”

The question, softly spoken, remained unanswered for a few seconds before Marceline flew away from the jail bars, with a serious frown and arms crossed in front of her.

“I didn’t freeze”, she replied, not daring to turn around for fear the pink monarch would see the lie.

“Then why didn’t we get the glob out of there, like I asked you?”

Bubblegum’s question was asked gently, despite her crude language, but it wasn’t enough to bring out the truth from the vampire. Yes, she had been too surprised by the Ice King’s appearance to react as quickly as she could have, but there was no way the pink monarch could prove it. Besides, she had never spoken of Simon with anyone before, and she certainly wasn’t about to. He was her past, one that only brought pain when she thought of it, and definitely not something to _share_ , be it with Bonnibel or anybody.

“I didn’t freeze”, Marceline repeated with a steadier voice. She turned around slowly, accusing eyes landing in her friend’s inquisitive gaze. “And why did you want to go there in the first place?

During the course of the centuries, Bubblegum had often felt it: the familiar guilt that came with her lies. Never had she felt it so pressing though, curled inside her like a dead weight, pulling her down towards the floor and suddenly making her so utterly tiny. The pink monarch couldn’t even begin to explain it: how was it that lying to Marceline about the identity of the Candy Kingdom’s mystery thief had brought her to obsess over the creation of a lie-detector? She had never felt this _need_ for telling the truth before, but she knew she couldn’t. Some things were better left unsaid, and some things… Some things she could never reveal.

“Because I like you”, the princess replied under her breath, unable to lie, but unable to shed the entire truth either. However, she had spoken so softly that it wasn’t loud enough for Marceline to hear, and perhaps that was what she intended after all.

Apparently not receiving any answers from her friend, Marceline sighed. “You’re the worst”, she said before she left, her presence being replaced not a minute afterwards by the old guard, the clicking sound of his cane being the only thing in the room as a paralyzed Bubblegum contemplated the unheard truth that had just escaped her lips.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The green marble whirled around the floor in incongruous patterns as Peppermint Butler chanted the same incantation again and again; immobile in the dead center of the lit up circle of candles. Around his waist, Bubblegum’s crown created a peculiar belt, the jewel it held reaching up to his chin every time he moved his arms over the map laid before him. Although it was very distracting, he did his best to remain focused on the task at hand.

It required a lot of efforts, especially now that so many decisions regarding the kingdom depended on his leadership. He found himself having more than one problem to solve, but one in particular appeared more urgent than most. The ongoing conflict with the vampires had cost not only many sugar resources, but also dozens of lives.

Every day, more Candy citizens were dangerously wounded or killed in combat. Even though they could easily deter the vampires away with their weapons, slaying them was another thing entirely and they had, so far, no such luck. On the other hand, Candy people were quite easy to assassinate, and that pesky weakness was starting to be an issue. Of course Peppermint was very aware that Bubblegum’s secret life formula could solve that problem quickly by cloning the deceased citizens, but there was still one obstacle in the way: the princess wasn’t available in the moment.

He focused his thoughts on her once again; the location spell he was attempting would work only if he was able to concentrate his mind onto the person he wanted to find. The butler continued his chanting louder for a few minutes until the marble finally stilled on a spot. Not hearing the sound anymore but doubting his own ability to focus under stress, Peppermint tentatively opened one eye, and when he was certain he had succeeded, opened the other. He kneeled to get closer to the map, smiling as he read aloud the indication next to where the green marble had stopped in its track.

“The Cherry Caverns of Sundae Woods.”

He picked up the marble in one quick gesture, securing it in his tiny pocket before stepping out of the circle of candles.

“Assemble the army”, he directed his authoritative voice towards the Banana guard standing at the entrance of his bedroom chambers. “We’re going to rescue our Princess.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The group gathered in the throne room, filling the space with loud discussions and laughter. A peculiar wave of excitement had gained the troops, as if they could feel something changing in the air. However, their joyful behavior wasn’t shared by all, and Marceline’s frown remained frozen on her face as she stood in the middle of the crowd, staring at the newest addition to the room.

In the center space, a strange metallic cage had been added to the décor; wheels on its side forming an intricate pattern that she couldn’t comprehend. A puzzled Marceline floated around it for only a few seconds, hoping her curiosity wouldn’t raise suspicion amongst her peers. Since her fight with Bubblegum, the others appeared less trustful of her, and she wondered if her conversation with her friend had been overheard.

She didn’t have much time to ponder the consequences of that possibility; the huge doors that connected Don Vito’s chambers and the throne room had just opened, and his entrance couldn’t be ignored. Two large columns of fire rose from each side of the gate as he stepped through, giant speakers spitting a loud voice against the cold cavern walls.

“Ladies and gentleman, please welcome your one and only king; Doooon Vitooooo!”

The obnoxious introduction was met with heavy applaud and cheers. Although she found the whole thing ridiculous, Marceline forced herself to clap her hands, not without rolling her eyes in their socket.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough”, the King insisted, but his wicked smile seemed to encourage them to continue. His subjects nevertheless stopped their loud welcome, and he spoke again with a deeper, more serious voice. “Friends, I’ve asked you here because we have news. The Candy army is on its way here as we speak.”

There was a gasp amongst the crowd as all wondered how their enemy could have learned of their secret headquarters. Marceline felt a few eyes diverting her way, but she thoroughly ignored them: she knew she wasn’t a traitor, and if they believed she had betrayed them, it was their loss. She crossed her arms in front of her and focused on the King’s speech, hoping it would be over quickly.

On the other side of the room, another door opened. Lead by two heavily armed guards, Princess Bubblegum entered, shackles binding her wrists and ankles. Whispers accompanied the sound of her chains as she walked in, her defiant eyes locked onto the King that was holding her prisoner.

“Thank you so much for joining us, Princess”, Don Vito spoke with a vicious grin spread across his face. “I have something for you.”

He snapped his fingers, and the movement was followed by a loud noise coming from the center of the room. As Marceline turned around, she noticed the cage had collapsed on itself, its ceiling having dropped violently to its floor, effectively crushing anything it its way. Another snap of Don Vito’s fingers and the device opened again, returning to its cage-like appearance.

“Unfortunately, we can’t let you go back home”, the man continued, although he obviously wasn’t sorry at all. He returned his attention to his subjects. “We will form a strong defense in the east tunnels. If they make it to this room, someone will have to dispose of their precious princess.”

He smirked as if the last words were distasteful in his mouth, waving his hand towards the cage as he finished his sentence. Meanwhile, a strange feeling had settled in Marceline’s gut; it wasn’t unlike when one ate ice cream too fast and froze their brains out, but it gripped itself deep inside her stomach instead of her head. She wondered for a second if that was terror; it had been so long since the last time she had been truly frightened of anything.

“I’ll do it”, the grey girl volunteered eagerly; too eagerly, she realised as she closed her mouth. The King frowned.

“No, we need you on the front”, he argued, dismissing her as if she was nothing.

“Look, I’m the one who brought her to you”, she replied, taking a step forward while she gestured towards the Princess, thoroughly avoiding looking at her. “You owe me.”

“We owe you nothing, you disrespectful brat”, the King angrily stated. No one had the right to oppose him, and especially not in front of his loyal subjects. He sent Marceline another hateful look before he pointed at the vampire standing beside her. “He will remain.”

Tommy pointed to himself, surprised. “Me?”

The boy had no idea that the King had ever noticed him, and suddenly he felt a pride that he thought he had never deserved. Maybe now, Ash, Kyle and the others would stop making fun of him, he wondered as he raised his head, standing taller than he was before.

“Yes. Your loyalty has already been proven”, the King started, and it filled Tommy with sheer happiness until he continued. “And what use would we have of an infirm on the front anyway?”

He ended his sentence with a loud laugh, joined by several others, and the little boy looked, ashamed, at the arm that wasn’t dangling by his side anymore. Although he was often mocked by his fellow vampires for his missing limb, it had never been so publicly and so cruelly. He kept his eyes down, embarrassment creeping over his features as he waited for the laughter to die.

“Put her in the cage”, the King ordered firmly, his overall confidence suddenly renewed.

“Let me”, Marceline asked, although she didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed Bubblegum’s arm forcefully, pulling her out of her guards’ hold and towards the cage. The rough movement caused a wave of protests and insults from the Princess, who argued it wasn’t a way to treat a monarch. The disagreement between the two seemed to calm the King’s suspicions of Marceline’s allegiances, and he waved his hand, effectively dismissing his troops.

“Alright. Everybody else, you know what to do.”

Don Vito left the room rapidly, while his vampire subjects complied with the orders, making their way loudly towards the east tunnels. Over the commotion, nobody heard Marceline’s soft whisper.

“If it comes to it, use the key.”

A puzzled Bubblegum stared at her grey friend as she was pushed inside the cage, uncertain of what she meant. Marceline locked the device quickly before she threw one last look inside Bonnibel’s eyes.

“Trust me: I’ll come and get you.”


	20. Friendly Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not coming with me”

“We have another!”

The panicked voice reached the emergency camp before the paramedics; their feet continuously absorbed ankle-deep by the vanilla and mint ice cream that formed the grounds of Sundae Woods. It considerably slowed their work despite the rush of adrenaline that hummed in all Candy citizens that day. Therefore, bringing the wounded soldiers safely back to Dr Dextrose had proven a task harder than previously thought, although now that they were in it, there was no time to adjust to the unexpected terrain. War demanded sacrifices and loss, and they would simply have to live with it.

Of course, that wasn’t an opinion shared by Dr Dextrose, who, from the small infirmary camp shadowed by chocolate trees, had a unique perspective on the conflict. More and more hurt Candy people arrived every half hour, and if this battle continued for too long, the doctor wondered if there would be anybody left in their sweet little kingdom. Saving the ones who couldn’t fight anymore was, obviously, a noble task, but really, there were only so many limbs that one could reattach to a body with the aid of marshmallow. At one point, it was simply ridiculous.

That, of course, did not stop Marceline from beating the icing off of Mr. Cupcake’s head.

“Cover your flanks!”

The loud voice only partially covered the screams that bounced off the Cherry caverns; Colonel Candy Corn’s efforts to train citizens into soldiers paid well, and his army was slowly progressing down the tunnels. He had guessed the enemy would cover their territory from the east, not knowing that his sentinels had found a way in from the south. With the element of surprise, they had made their way quickly. Still, they needed to find their princess rapidly if they wanted to survive this brutal encounter.

Marceline noticed two Jelly Beans slipping away from the confrontation and towards the shadows, lurking; spies sent ahead to find the location of their monarch within the caves. She closed her fist and sent another Candy citizen flying across the air, not even bothering to look as its back hit the wall. Those people, those were the ones the Princess had chosen to protect above all else. She felt a slight hint of jealousy over that thought, and sighed.

“For Bubblegum!”

They had been screaming the same refrain over and over, and as a tiny gumdrop raised his sun-in-a-gun towards her, it all became clear, this unease in her gut that kept swelling every time she heard the name. In the fraction of a second, Marceline knew exactly what she had to do: she had to let Bonnie go.

Being invisible was not only easy, but also quite the advantage, the vampire realised as she made her way through the melee. Grabbing the gumdrop that had attempted to fire at her, she ran through the candies’ ranks, bouncing her victim up and down over the crowd. The sight created a distraction for both sides as she crossed, even though she didn’t notice all eyes laid on her – or more so, on the poor little gumdrop struggling in her right hand. Finally, she tossed him behind her shoulder as an old toy she wouldn’t be bothered with anymore, and the gumdrop fell on a vampire’s head, effectively returning all to their mutual animosities.

Marceline floated through the somewhat empty corridors, only followed by the sounds of the war that took place behind her. She vaguely remembered the way towards the throne room and advanced quickly, hoping that that order to activate the device had yet to be sent; if the Princess had been forced to use the magic key already, it would be a pain to go through that labyrinth to retrieve her, especially since the grey girl had no idea where the map was – or even what the vampires had done with the green backpack. Her stomach turned ill as she realised that, perhaps, the pink monarch had been stripped of all belongings. If so, she wouldn’t have the teleportation device on her, therefore having no means of escaping the killing device she was locked in. Marceline flew more rapidly, the air stinging against her eyes as she focused in the path leading her directly to Bonnibel.

With no hesitation, she barged in the throne room, ensured that her invisibility would keep her from being detected. Stupor froze her non-beating heart as her eyes landed on the empty cage that rested triumphantly in the middle of the chamber. The vampire was unable to blink or to close her mouth as she floated forward slowly, daring one quick look towards the floor of the device; desperately wishing with all her heart that there wouldn’t be a puddle of pink bubble gum glued on there.

She sighed with content when she saw no traces of the Princess, but it took only a few seconds before she worried again. If Bubblegum wasn’t here, where was she? She thought of the fight she had just left, and the two Jelly Bean spies looking for their leader; there was no way they could get here more quickly than her.

“Are you alright?”

The somewhat familiar whispered voice grabbed her attention, and so she floated towards it with caution. The noise seemed to emerge from a small, dark tunnel at the other end of the room.

“Yeah no worries. Let’s get the glob out of here, shall we?”

She swallowed hardly as she recognized that second speaker; Bonnibel. While remaining invisible, she crawled inside the passageway, careful not to disturb the grounds as she advanced, not wanting to warn the princess and her accomplice of her presence. The tunnel enlarged enough to allow her to float again as she listened to the small footsteps she could now hear; the noises seemed to confirm that there were only two persons ahead of her, but she couldn’t be certain. She flew more rapidly and succeeded in reaching them just as the Princess was climbing up a ladder fixed on the red rocks of the cavern.

“It’s straight ahead from now on.”

Marceline noticed the small vampire that stood at the bottom of the ladder, his sword dangling lazily by his side while his only hand rested against the metal bar, as if to ensure the safety of the structure. Tommy had been looking up, but a deep worry appeared in his face as he turned around swiftly, and for a second the grey girl was convinced he had noticed her. She kept still for a few seconds before she realised that he was simply going back the way he had come in, and not actually walking towards her. The boy took four steps before Bubblegum’s voice stopped him.

“You’re not coming with me”, she asked. The question, despite being thrown towards Marceline, was obviously not meant for her.

“I can’t; my family’s here”, the boy replied. “Just use the trick I showed you. Should work.”

The pink monarch, who had been kneeling down as she spoke with the young vampire, stood up in one quick movement, ready to make her way towards the exit. However, she hesitated before taking the first step, and so, she turned around.

“Could you, uh, tell Marcie…” Bonnibel’s voice lost its usual strength and authority with the hesitation that glued the words down her stomach. She shook her head, erasing the sentence she had been forming; “never mind.”

“You want me to tell her ‘never mind’”, the innocent boy repeated eagerly.

Princess Bubblegum’s loud sigh echoed through the dark tunnel, successfully covering Marceline’s. “No, I mean; forget I said anything”, she explained, shrugging off the whole thing before she started walking towards the exit. After a few steps, she stopped again; “oh, and thanks for the help.”

Marceline winced.

 

 

* * *

 

 

An awkward fanfare welcomed the return of Princess Bubblegum into her own kingdom, and even though the musicians weren’t very good – which might have a thing to do with the fact that they used kitchen appliances as instruments –, she thought they were doing an okay job with what they had. Besides, she had been home sick for so very long, just the sight of her castle towers from afar had made her eyes water with happiness. It wasn’t that she was unaccustomed to long travels or even that she preferred sleeping in her own bed; she simply had been tossed around Ooo long enough to desperately need to rest amongst her things – oh, and a long, hot shower. What she wouldn’t give for a shower?

There were, however, responsibilities for her to complete before she could indulge herself; on the way back home, she had listened to her citizens-turned-soldiers and had heard the tales of Peppermint Butler’s rise to power, starting from his confrontation with the Ice King to this all-out war against vampires. The short walk into town to the castle’s gate was punctured with propaganda posters and hurt Candy people who wandered the streets, aimless. Her colorful and lively kingdom had been transformed into a ghost town, she realized with a shiver.

“Peeeppermiiint”, the pink monarch screamed as soon as the main gate closed behind her, “get your sugar butt down here!”

She heard a commotion upstairs, and waited, foot tapping against the floor and fists resting on both her hips. The anger inside her was quickly reaching a boiling point; he’d better not force her to call for him again.

“Yes, yes”, she heard the voice right before she saw the tiny man walk in. “I’m here to serve Princess.”

He bowed, and for a second the pink monarch wondered if he was mocking her. However, the dark circles under his eyes and the pencil that had glued itself on his forehead told another tale; one of exhaustion. She felt the anger dissipate from inside her right away, but she knew she couldn’t let him go without a proper scolding. He had, after all, waged an entire war in her absence. Surely that wasn’t an okay behavior.

“Peppermint, what have I always told you about violence?”

She asked, and he raised puzzled eyes to her.

“That it should be only to defend one self and nothing more”, a light flickered in his eyes for but a second.

“Exactly”, Bonnibel replied, marking every syllable, yet content with the answer. “Now, tell me, why have you started this war against the vampires?”

Again, the candy hesitated. “She kidnapped you”, he spoke as if he had lost all his willpower and remained there, defenseless; a kid afraid of being punished. “We just wanted to have our Princess back.”

Two things emerged at once inside Bubblegum; there was the selfish reassurance that her kingdom needed her to function properly, and the strange regret that rose once she realised the “she” Peppermint was referring to; Marceline. She hadn’t thought of her since she had left the Cherry Caverns, but still felt awkward coming home without her, as if she had left her behind. She shrugged, returning her attention to more pressing matters.

“Well”, she sighed, eyes on the pitiful butler begging for mercy in front of her, “promise you won’t start a war in my absence again?”

“I promise”, he raised a hand, as if swearing an oath.

It seemed like enough, for now, and Princess Bubblegum couldn’t bare the idea of not already being in a hot shower. Her clothes reeked, pine needles had stuck inside her hair on the way back and she was tremendously exhausted.

“’Okay then, BRB”, she answered quickly, turning on her heels and walking decisively towards her chamber. For now, the rest would have to wait.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t right, but there was nothing she could do about it but sigh. And so she did, for the third time, and very loudly at that: it didn’t change anything.

Arms crossed in front of her, Marceline stared, floating apart from the crowd that had gathered in the throne room after the enemy soldiers’ retreat. The order had been given to reconvene here, probably after Don Vito had found that the Princess had escaped. After what seemed like forever, the King had finally deemed his ranks of his gracious presence. He had been present for less than a few minutes before the terrible (but quite accurate) accusation resonated solemnly against the cavern walls.

 “You have aided Princess Bubblegum to escape from our hold, which confirms, to us, that your allegiances belong to her.”

That had caused her first sigh; Marceline knew exactly what she was going to do when she had rushed to that room, and that was the same thing as Tommy had already done. She didn’t know exactly why he had chosen to help Bonnie, but if the hesitation, fear and doubt that were spread across his features were any indication, he didn’t really know either. Maybe he was one of _those_ , Marceline thought; those who _do the right thing_.

She, on the other hand, had definitely not been on some rightful quest to preserve a person’s life or even on a devious scheme to solidify multiple politics allegiances; on that moment, she had chosen Bonnibel over her loyalty to the vampires, hence making her a bigger traitor than Tommy. She would never admit it, of course, especially not now that Bubblegum was kingdoms away and that she was stuck here, with these losers who were cheering as they tortured a little boy.

“Tommy the Traitor! Tommy the Traitor!”

The nickname wasn’t original, and from it had emerged her second sigh. Really, those guys were nothing but losers; she wondered what she had ever seen in them.

For the last ten minutes, they have been forcing the little boy to turn around a baseball bat, his forehead glued to its tip, the quick spin making him incredibly dizzy. She frowned with disgust when he couldn’t take it anymore, stepping to the side to throw up as the mean crowd cheered.

“Alright, that’s enough”, Marceline interrupted them, much to her own surprise. Before her, all eyes filled up with questions, especially the little boy’s blinking orbs, clouded with nausea. She lifted herself to hover above them all, surveying the crowd. “He’s had enough.”

The King angrily stomped his feet. “Only _I_ get to decide when he’s been punished enough for his disobedience.”

“Yeah well, the kid made you a favor”, she argued, finding strength in her opposition to the King. She didn’t like him very much, and the more she thought of it, Tommy might have been just another dweeb, but Don Vito was certainly a coward and she hated cowards. “You were losing the fight anyway.”

The sentence sent gasps around the throne room, even though Marceline knew the other vampires shared exactly the same idea – it was a fake reaction to prove their loyalty to the King. Everybody she had spoken with knew the sun-in-a-gun was being more than a thorn on their side, and that the vampires were tired of playing soldiers and fighting a war when all they wanted to do was run around the land freely, pulling pranks and _livin’ the undead life_ , as they said.

“PB promised to end the war”, Marceline continued, and Tommy frowned. So, it was a lie; still, it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to do it anyway. The grey girl knew that the pink monarch would end the conflict as soon as she reached her castle, and all would be over, and they could return to being awesome lonely vampires instead of this awkward flash mob of losers. She failed to notice the hope her words had sent across the room, but it disappeared as soon as the King spoke, anyway;

“Well _I_ didn’t.”

She gulped. _Hadn’t thought of that_.

Across the room, Tommy and Ash unknowingly shared the same look as they stared at Marceline; a mixture of hope and fear.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry to have made you all wait like that. I usually update more, but the last few weeks have been a wreck. Anyways; just wanted to let you know that this story has 24 chapters total, so there are only four chapters left. I am considering continuing with a sequel, but I don't know. Would you guys enjoy that?


	21. A Hero's Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Of course! It’s YOU!”

Night had just started to settle in the sky; barely a few stars showed up already, faint lights almost undiscernible, as if they had just woken up and weren’t at full strength yet. Marceline preferred this time of day more than any other; the air still held warmth from the sun, and it tingled with a promise. She had hours of freedom ahead, and she intended to use them well. Adieu to the Cherry Caverns, the tedious restrictions of living amongst others and the ridiculous King that supposedly ruled vampires. Soon, she’d have all the time in the world to strum her guitar, to wander around Ooo…

“Hey, wait up!”

She sighed but slowed down anyway, knowing the wizard would be persistent enough to chase her for a while. Plus, it made her feel warm inside, the idea that someone wasn’t ready to let her go – it wasn’t unlike how she had felt when the Duke of Nuts had refused to let Bubblegum arrest her, a few weeks ago.

“You’re leaving”, a young vampire asked, although the answer was quite obvious. Still, Marceline felt obliged to respond.

“Yeah”, she replied, turning around to see the two boys who had been chasing her so desperately across Sundae Woods. She had no problem manoeuvering quickly in this forest, but for anyone walking, the ice cream grounds must have been hard to run into. Indeed, seemingly out of breath, Ash and Tommy stared at her, wide-eyed, both struggling to keep a straight, serious composure, and failing at that. “What’s it to you?”

“Can I come with you?” Ash asked briskly, cutting off whatever Tommy was about to say. The young vampire closed his mouth and frowned, as if he hadn’t been expecting that question. His face lightened up a bit when Marceline answered a strong “no way”, but then she started flying away again and he knew he wouldn’t be able to follow her for much longer. Fearing his momentum was getting away from him, Tommy yelled after her as quickly as he could; “Will you help us?”

Again, his voice caused her to sigh and stop. Marceline didn’t turn around this time, uncertain of what to answer. For centuries now, nobody had ever asked for her help; unless one counted Bonnibel’s request for transportation to Candid Mountain. Apart from that tiny favor – which had brought her nothing but trouble –, she didn’t remember if anyone ever did.

“Nobody ever stood up against him, you know”, Tommy continued, hesitation barely hiding the awe and pride in his voice as he spoke of Marceline. “You’re the only one.”

“I don’t care about your stupid King”, the girl opposed immediately, starting to fear what he would ask of her. Ash snorted, as if he didn’t believe her, and as a result she turned around quickly, surprising him so much he gasped when she stopped less than a foot away from him, eyes reddened with anger and voice filled with darkness. “What’s it to you anyway? You’re not even a vampire.”

“All my friends are”, he whined under his breath. “And I’m the King’s right-hand”, he bragged.

Marceline took a step back, staring him down. She didn’t know where the pathetic wizard was, the one almost begging her to take him with her wherever she was going, but he wasn’t here in anymore. No, instead she was left wandering the Sundae Woods with a naïve boy who thought her a hero and a cynic coward waiting for her to fail – it didn’t seem like much of an upgrade.

“Well, what are you here for, then”, the vampire girl asked, annoyed by the whole situation. Somehow, she now deeply regretted that she hadn’t just left already – she didn’t know what exactly was keeping her, but she felt like she had to stay and finish this conversation; whatever that meant.

“I’m nothing if he loses his crown”, Ash admitted in a low-voice, causing both Tommy and Marceline to roll their eyes.

“So what? Why would I care”, the grey girl wondered aloud, the words a bit more rude than she had intended. Ash only stared in disbelief and anger – he had thought her to be his friend.

“I think you should be King”, Tommy’s voice, filled with wonderment, broke the confrontation between the two. As Marceline sent her angry eyes his way, he lost his composure, brushing his sweaty nervous hand over the fabric of his pants. “Q-Queen, I mean, I… I think you could be. You should be – Queen of the vampires, yeah.”

The confession threw Marceline off her game – she had always been a loner, certainly not leader material. Plus, she had spent all her undead life running away from such responsibilities in the Nightosphere; she wasn’t about to take on a binding role and so many boring duties just because a young boy and his wizard friend – were they even friends? – asked nicely.

“Why?”

The question escaped her lips without her will, and it was so soft the boy almost didn’t hear. By his side, Ash was all but forgotten.

“Because I trust you”, Tommy responded genuinely. “You’ll do the right thing.”

His naivety was endearing, Marcie thought. Therefore, she decided to ponder the words she would use to let him down; he certainly deserved as much. She opened and closed her mouth several times, hoping to find the right combination, the correct sentence to explain to him that she wasn’t who he thought she was – someone who could help, someone that he could believe in, a leader. Somehow, thinking of that person she could never hope to be reminded her of Princess Bubblegum, and in her chest, her heart squeezed.

“Or you can let the King crush those stupid Candy folks and be done with it”, Ash suggested as if it was nothing.

It hit the right string.

“Okay”, Marceline agreed, and confusion spread on Tommy’s features. She sent him a small smile before she took a small step back. “I’ll do it. I’ll become Queen, or whatevs.”

She shrugged, hoping to hide her nervousness as she rushed by their side, headed back towards the Cherry Caverns without spending a look to see if they followed.

“You guys are coming or what?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Crown safely tucked on her royal head, fresh clothes and hygiene levels back to normal, Princess Bubblegum felt like she could take over the world. In the depths of her beloved lab – oh, how great it felt to finally be home –, she stood beside Science’s cage without noticing the curious gaze that lingered in the rat’s tiny orbs as it sniffed through the bars.

“Alright, alright”, Bonnibel got herself pumped up, jumping in place while shaking her arms, as if a boxer seconds away from a fight. She then took a minute to stretch her limbs, continuously psyching herself up with various _you can do this!_ and _you were born for this!_. Still staring, Science turned around inside her crate, puzzled as to what her friend was doing but remaining quiet as a mouse.

Bubblegum cracked her knuckles and then her neck, extended her arms one last time before she finally took a seat at her desk.

“Let’s do this.”

At first she sat straight up, eyes staring at the blank notepad in front of her, fingers absent-mindedly toying with a pen. As the minutes went by, though, her figure started to slouch on her chair until her head came to rest between her two hands, frown firmly in place, thinking hard. There was something slipping away from her, she _knew_ , something that could make sense of everything that had happened in the last few weeks. She was about to give up on her mission when Science squeaked, handing her a chalk.

“You’re right”, the pink monarch replied, eagerly rising to her feet and rushing towards the chalkboard she kept for brain emergencies. She got rid of the spider webs linking it to the closest furniture, unable to contain a disgusted, not very princess-like “ewww”, and erased the old formulas clamped up on its black surface.

Standing in front of the chalkboard, hands on her hips, she frowned once more. Taking a deep breath, she finally took a step forward and drew an oval with three small pyramids on top and curly lines running down from it. Behind her, still comfortably resting in the midst of her cage, Science squeaked again.

“What? It’s the Ice King”, the princess protested – as if a rat would have better drawing skills?

Science was unimpressed.

Bubblegum added the words _key – teleportation device_ under her sketch, knowing that was one of the puzzles she had to solve. How a creepy old wizard had gotten hold of such a thing was already strange, but that he would also keep it around his neck, as if it was a mere trinket? That was weird.

At the other end of the chalkboard, she continued her work and drew a stick figure, arms wide open, with a long line crossing over it, ending with a small triangle.

“It’s Marceline”, Bubblegum whispered under her breath, pouting like a child in front of her bad drawing skills. Still, she was somewhat proud of the doodled guitar. Under her disastrous scribble, she added _why come here?_.

Satisfied with her first step – the laying of the ground, as she called it –, she followed her instinct and pulled a map of Ooo. She added a star to every location she had visited over the course of the strange events – one on the Candy kingdom, obviously, and then proceeded to the Duchy of Nuts, Candid Mountain, the depths of the Ice Kingdom, etc. It formed a tiny constellation on her map, only serving to confuse her even more – there was no discernable pattern yet.

Realising she had forgotten all about her chalkboard, she swiftly returned to it, map half-folded in one hand, chalk in the other. There were a few traces of white powder dirtying her cheeks and falling onto her clothes, but she didn’t really notice, focused as she was. Bubblegum traced a line between her two previous drawings and wrote down _vamps?_ , wondering if that gang of thugs was the connection between all that happened. Still, that answer appeared so obvious, it felt wrong; vampires didn’t seem like the point, more like the distraction, therefore she quickly erased the word, taking another step back.

“Alright, let’s go through it from the start”, the princess offered Science, and the rat avoided her eyes, instead starting to clean its little nose with its paws. “Okay, you do that then.”

The princess hesitated a few seconds before she spread the map on a desktop, quickly pacing the lab back and forth from the table to the chalkboard, gesturing as she exposed her thoughts aloud.

“So, one night, she just pops by and goes, ‘hey, I’m gonna crash here’ and kicks me out of my castle. I create the sun-in-a-gun and voila, she’s outta here and – and you guys used that weapon to fight a war with the vamps – which we should’ve lost quickly, I mean, have you seen my Banana guards?”

She frowned; the answer wasn’t there.

“Then we wouldn’t have heard of Marceline again, only someone started stealing red stuff…”

There it was; the thief. She had purposefully pushed the memory at the back of her mind, but now that she thought of it again, it all made sense. Her mind was almost blown away at the remembrance. “Of course! It’s YOU!”

A maniacal laugh escaped her lips and Science deeply worried that perhaps the Princess hadn’t rested enough.

“But what do you want?”

The pink girl stretched the map of Ooo again, puzzled. There was no regular pattern; all events appeared random, unfocused, which was not at all her enemy’s motto, unless… Unless it was exactly the point: to cause chaos. Suddenly, everything was clear.

Bonnibel smiled wickedly before she grabbed a blue messenger bag, throwing in what she knew would be useful for her journey. As she worked almost feverishly, she called for Lady Rainicorn, deeply grateful when her friend arrived quickly.

“Keep an eye out, I gotta go”, she barely explained herself as she opened her laboratory’s refrigerator, grabbing two samples of a blue potion and the same amount of bottles filled with a white liquid. She threw one of each into her messenger bag and held onto the others.

Lady Rainicorn complained it wasn’t very wise to leave her kingdom so soon after her return, especially while it was still in the midst of a war, but the monarch knew her mission couldn’t wait. If she was right – and she was always right – her kingdom had more to worry about than a bunch of vampire meanies.

Confident in her decision, Bubblegum opened one beaker; she drank the blue concoction straight from the glass, her pink skin sparkling a bit as it turned purple. Then, she used the chalk Science had given her to draw a wide circle on the floor in front of her, adding two dots and a curled line in the middle of it. Twisting the cap off of the bottle, she spilled the white liquid on her sketch before she opened her mouth.

“Maloso vobiscum et cum spiritum”, she rolled her eyes as she chanted, and a moment later, she was gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“YOU WHAT?”

Crumbs flew from his mouth and fell at her feet; Marceline winced.

“I… hereby challenge your authority and oppose your reign of terror?”

She hesitated over the sentence, playing it in her head even as she pronounced the words. She had practiced it several times over with Tommy, but still, it didn’t sound right coming from her. Apparently there were specific keywords she had to say, some special formal speech that meant something according to the Rules of Vampires or whatever. An elbow gave her a slight nudge, and she realised she wasn’t finished yet.

“Oh, yeah”, she added, boldly stepping forward, “I do so as a champion of the people and all… you know.”

Obviously, the King didn’t know, because he frowned, angry retort stuck in his throat. Unbeknownst to all, something else had gotten stuck there too, which caused him to turn red, the color only convincing all witnesses of his boundless wrath, that is, until he started to cough violently. Finally realising the King wasn’t pulling a tantrum but was actually choking on his food, a loyal subject – the old guard with a limp – reached his side, hitting his back as strongly as he could until the culprit popped out.

Retrieving the ability to speak again, the King pushed away the guard as he rose to his feet, standing tall in front of his throne in an imposing manner. “You dare challenge me?”

If Marceline had been honest, she would have admitted that his dark voice was a little frightening. However, her daring opposition had caused quite the commotion in the throne room, and as it filled with whispers of her name linked with rumors of courage, she couldn’t focus on anything else but the attention thrown her way. It silenced her worries and burst in her chest like fireworks.

“You’re globbin’ right, Don Vito.”

The use of his name without his title was, in itself, an unforgivable offense; one that Marceline had purposefully orchestrated. Despite Tommy’s protestations that _law is Law, even for the King_ , she had no certainty over the fact that he would agree to her challenge. Just because an old parchment said any vampire had the right to defy the royalty and win his crown in battle, it didn’t mean he was going to enter the contest willingly. He could always protest that it was an old, stupid rule, and throw her into a dungeon for her efforts.

However, seeing as he was surrounded by so many witnesses and coaxed so openly into defending his honor, there was no way he could back down now.

“Alright you little brat, I’ll show you to disrespect me...”

He shrugged the cape he had thrown over his shoulders, and as it reached the floor, he clapped his hands together twice, loudly. It took a few seconds before the vampires understood what the dramatic gesture meant; the King was accepting the challenge, and as the Rules stated, the battle had to start immediately.

The silence that had prevailed in the room a few seconds ago rapidly turned into a loud buzzing as a few vampires brought half a dozen crates into the room. They worked eagerly, every one of them secretly wondering where their loyalties rested. Don Vito had been King for as long as all could remember, and he was usually a super chill dude, but this stubborn war wasn’t making anyone happy. Marceline, on the other hand, was brand new – a stranger amongst them, and she had strange powers they didn’t have; a fact they weren’t sure they liked. She didn’t care much about the fight against the Candy kingdom, though, and that played largely in her favour.

A giant sandglass was rolled into the throne room and erected between the two opponents as Tommy whispered in the grey girl’s ear.

“You have one minute to suck the red out of as many cherries as you can.”

_Oh_. If she would have known that, Marceline probably would not have stuffed herself so much on cakes when she gathered the courage to come here. She found little hope at the thought that, at least, she wasn’t the only one unprepared; the King had been in the middle of his second supper when she had barged in the throne room.

The air filled with tension and electricity as the two rivals stood beside their respective pile of crates, eager to start. Nervousness had long settled inside Marcie’s stomach, and she wished it wouldn’t ruin her already wavering appetite. Luckily, when Ash hit the gong to signal the beginning of the contest, she completely forgot the stakes and simply did as Tommy ordered.

The little boy kept cheering her on as he filled his one hand with cherries, handing her handful after handful of fruits. Marceline basked into the red, acting solely on instinct as she barely registered the continuous _you can totes do this man_ emerging from her sidekick. If she had taken the time to think, she would have remembered her first few weeks as a vampire – those days when she feared everything and everyone, and always devoured red so rapidly, somewhat akin to a rabid animal, constantly terrorized and hungry.

As she did back then, she consumed the fruits as if it was the only thing keeping her alive, as if nothing else had ever mattered, and when the timer reached its end, the last grains of sand falling into the glass, she heard the loud bang of the gong. It was like getting out of a trance, and she blinked several times before she successfully remembered where she was, and what was going on. There were crushed berries all over her clothes and juice dripping from her mouth and cheeks while she waited patiently for the vampires to count every grey cherry that had fallen to her feet. On the other side of the room, the King looked just as disgusting as she felt she was.

“Winner of the first trial is”, Ash started with a firm, yet cheerful voice, as soon as the result had been whispered in his ear, “Marceline Abadeer!”

Half of the crowd cheered loudly, the King’s smile turned into an angered frown and Tommy gasped with surprise, but all Marceline could do was whisper under her breath; “ _first_ trial?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks once again for the kind words. I'm starting to have a few ideas about that sequel, so it might very well be a thing soon.
> 
> Also, I've been re-reading and correcting a few grammatical errors and typos from previous chapters, so you might see a lot of updates in the next few days. I won't be re-writing anything, I'm just trying to fix everything up before this ends. 
> 
> I don't know about you, but for me, it's been quite a fun ride, and it's a pleasure to share it with you.


	22. War Casualties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nobody calls me that.”

A red sky glared above Princess Bubblegum as she trekked, stomach turning every time her eyes fell onto a banana-like yellow thing on the side of the road. Reaching another crossroads – there were so many – she stopped, cracking her neck before she looked up to the giant mansion that had grown on the side of the dark mountain. It had gotten considerably closer within the last few minutes, which meant she better rehearse, once again, what she wanted to say.

She continued to walk as she practiced, focusing on the tone she wanted to use. _So um, remember that Evil Gum I created few centuries back? Yeah, I know He’s here, and you have to throw it out, it’s unsanitary._ No, that wouldn’t work; although she really hated EG, he was friends with Abadeer. Insulting him wasn’t exactly the best way to gain support to her cause. _Mister Abadeer, as a soul-business person, surely you can understand the danger of…_ That wasn’t it either – Hunson had everything to gain from the chaos the Evil Gum was creating. It would allow his troops to cross over and invade Ooo, consuming the souls of not only her citizens, but of all living creatures on the land. And Hunson Abadeer would reign over a giant, two-stories-high, Nightosphere.

_Abadeer, don’t trust the Gum, It wants to kill us all, you included._ Ah, there it was, her angle; straight-forward, clear, decisive. She knew her EG more than anyone else and if there was one thing she could say without a doubt, it was that the Evil Gum would never be satisfied – especially not with leaving Abadeer in charge of its new chaotic empire.

Now if she could only find a way to avoid talking about anything else, she would be fine. And maybe even make it back home in time for supper.

She knocked three times on the mansion door before it opened by itself with a long creepy screech. Bonnibel walked inside, the darkness in the house even more intense than the one outside. Her eyes still managed to adjust, however, and so she stepped forward and cleared her throat.

“Anybody home?”

Her question remained unanswered, but she heard a noise coming from the right, where an orange light emerged from an unknown room – the foyer, if Bonnibel remembered correctly from her last visit to the mansion.

“Well well, look who’s passing through”, Abadeer spoke with an evil voice when she walked in, quickly standing up to turn around the princess, hissing. “Or are you here to stay?”

“Might as well; heard you have quite the guest these days”; the princess bluffed with confidence, hiding the discomfort she felt at having thirteen eyes examining her. She hated this particular demonic form of Abadeer, with the long tentacles running out of his black suit, the sharp white teeth and the impossible amounts of wide black irises. The fact that he had chosen this shape to welcome her informed her that he was expecting her visit, which could only mean that she was right. EG was definitely here, and It had formed an alliance with the Nightosphere.

“Oh, is He why you came to me?”

He stood in front of the fire, casting his long shadow on Princess Bubblegum in another attempt to intimidate her. The pink monarch almost smirked; she knew his game all too well, now.

“Why else?”, she answered, looking around with disgust before crossing her arms, pretending to be disinterested in the conversation. “The beautiful landscapes?”

“I thought perhaps you wanted to talk about my daughter”, Hunson suggested with a grin, leaning in as if speaking of a private matter.

“What about your daughter?”

Princess Bubblegum blurted out the question too quickly, and although she didn’t look startled, Abadeer knew she was.

“There are rumors that you two are…”, he let his words linger, all eyes analyzing the monarch’s reactions to his words. “Friends”, he ended with disdain.

“And, what? I need your permission to be her friend?”

There was a faint redness creeping up on the princess’ cheeks and Hunson smirked, feeling he had found a new way to toy with the monarch. Over the centuries, the ruler of the Candy Kingdom had developed quite the poker face – but it wasn’t good enough.

“Is that what you want, dear?”, he asked innocently.

“What?”, she replied, obviously startled.

“To be her friend”, he insisted. His intel on Princess Bubblegum had often confirmed that she didn’t have friends – or anybody she cared about. She had allies, she had servants, she had peasants; she didn’t have friends; they were weaknesses. Abadeer could respect that. “To have _permission_ ” he tried, not really knowing why he was compelled to add another blow. Seeing the hurt painted in the monarch’s face, he congratulated himself for having struck a nerve.

“I came here to warn you about Him”, Bonnibel replied after a few seconds of silence, diverting the conversation away from Marceline and back onto safe territory.

“You? Warning me?”

He crossed several tentacles in front of him, disappointed by the change of subject.

“I know you well, Abadeer”, Bubblegum continued, her confidence finally returning. “And I know him to.”

“Do you now?”, Hunson asked playfully, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Struck you a deal, did he? He brings chaos to Ooo so you can invade, and he, what? Holds your hand?”

The ruler of the Nightosphere remained quiet. He hated when someone else was right and so he simply shrugged, waiting for the monarch to finish making her point.

“You know how all this started, don’t you?”, Princess Bubblegum dared, adrenaline pumping through her veins even as she realised what her perfect brain had just understood. “The first domino that hit all the others?”

Hunson Abadeer had all his eyes on her now, and she knew she had him where she wanted. She knew this time, she would win.

“Your daughter invaded my castle.”

Bonnibel turned around, pride overflowing while she reached for the door. As she laid one hand on the handle, she breathed down and sent the last blow. “You think about that Abadeer”, she started, as if they had been old chums sharing tales at a bar, “you think about how your new pal convinced your daughter to leave the Nightosphere, to abandon her place on the throne.” She opened the door, sending one look towards him as she added; “and then you do what you have to do.”

 

* * *

Larger and louder than at the first challenge, the crowd of vampires cheered as it waited for the contestants to appear. Safely hiding behind the metal door separating the gymnasium from the locker room, Marceline swallowed hard, fighting against the urge of running away.

Sure, she had won the first trial easily enough, but she was completely out of her element. Even though Ash insisted she was the coolest vampire that ever lived, and Tommy, that she could be the leader they needed, it still didn’t feel right. She didn’t belong here, amongst this crowd of losers who didn’t even dare challenge a king as ridiculous as Don Vito.

Nevertheless, the thought of him reminded her of why she had agreed to challenge him in the first place, and it sent little comfort to her overwhelmed nerves. She sighed, one hand on the door, closed her eyes and finally found the strength to push it open.

As she stepped through, a wave of screaming and clapping welcomed her. She noticed a few vampires held signs with her name on it; _Marceline 4 Queen_ , most of them read. She smiled as she walked down the alley, the constant cheering bringing a newfound energy within her. Raising her hands in victory, she let out confident shout outs to her fans, the previous anxiety washed away.

In the middle of the gymnasium, under the spotlights, a boxing ring had been erected. Already on the square stage, Don Vito was circling around, throwing slow punches in the air, a white towel spread on his shoulders. As if his fat belly wasn’t enough indication about the poor status of his health, he was already sweating heavily. Marceline smirked; this fight would be over in a minute, tops.

“And in the left corner, all the way from who-knows-where, the challenger! The young, the strange, the craaaaazy, MARCELINE!”

The crowd cheered even louder as she stepped through the ropes, holding her fists up and jumping up and down in excitement. The air seemed filled with electricity and she felt pumped with adrenaline. After a few seconds of showing off her moves, she returned to her corner, where she noticed Ash and Tommy were waiting for her. She sat on the small stool and the young vampire offered her a water bottle while Ash placed both of his hands on her shoulders.

“Alright, you crush him today, and you win the crown”, he encouraged her, fingers massaging her muscles a bit too firmly. She shrugged, the movement repelling his hands off her as she turned her head towards Tommy.

“I don’t know anything about boxing, though”, she confessed, the worry coming back to her as she noticed the crowd was getting more silent, as the fight would begin soon.

Beside Marceline, Tommy laughed loudly, until he realised she was serious. “Wait, Ash didn’t tell you what the challenge is?”

She opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by the referee, inviting her to take her place in the center of the ring. She frowned as she floated away from the corner, her anxiety now fully back. In front of her, Don Vito was smirking with assurance, which only brought another stressful spark in her stomach. Hoping to cast her doubts aside, she cracked her neck and stretched her arms, and when the King extended his right hand towards her, she shook it in one firm, decisive gesture before letting it go.

Beside her, the referee frowned. “Are you declaring forfeit?”

Puzzled, Marceline’s eyes traveled from the arbiter to the crowd before she blinked. “No?”

“Well then, let’s go”, Don Vito suggested, arm still extended between them.

Not without hesitation, the grey girl held his hand again, and this time his fingers scraped against her palm as he pressured her into a strange grip.

“One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war”, he proceeded, moving his thumb back and forth with the rhythm of the lyrics.

Marceline stared at him, unsure of what was expected of her, until she heard Tommy’s voice murmuring as loudly as possible the rest of the rhyme; “Five, six, seven, eight, you are stupid I am great.”

She repeated his words, a smile creeping up on her face as she noticed the insulted expression painted on Don Vito’s face. It caught her off guard, though, when the King’s fat thumb starting pressing against hers, firmly holding it down. When the referee started counting down, she realised that was, perhaps, the point of the game, and although the muscles of her wrist complained painfully, she managed to pull her digit out of there.

The crowd cheered both opponents as their thumbs circled one another, knuckles bending quickly as both tried to get the upper hand. Finally, Marceline managed to get her digit onto the King’s and pressed down as strongly as she could, face contortioned with effort. She barely heard the fans screaming the numbers as the referee counted down from five.

As if sucked into a vacuum, she focused all her attention on her grip, canceling the sounds and lights surrounding her. She held onto a breath – even though she didn’t really need breathing – and closed her eyes, expecting victory in an instant.

However, as she did so, her grasp wavered for less than a second, and that gave enough time to Don Vito to gain the upper hand once more. His thumb twisted expertly over Marceline’s wrapping itself onto the digit and holding it down so tightly, she couldn’t move.

The crowd gasped as Marceline pulled with all her strength, the referee’s countdown seemingly echoing within her chest as she desperately trying to haul her thumb out of Don Vito’s grip. She focused her energy and will onto the movement until finally, the room fell silent.

“Zero”, the arbiter reached the end of his countdown. “I declare Don Vito the winner of this challenge!”

The King laughed triumphantly as he raised his arms over his head, circling around the boxing ring and encouraging the crowd in its loud cheering. Defeated, Marceline sent one look towards Ash and Tommy, ashamed to notice the disappointment in their eyes.

“The third and last challenge will be”, the referee started announcing, the crowd barely listening, “a fight to the Death!”

 

* * *

The sound of an alarm invaded the corridors of the castle as Princess Bubblegum dashed through the long halls that lead to the security room. Her disorganised Banana guards barely registered that their monarch was back from her trip as she rushed by them in a hurry. As she crossed the threshold, she sent a quick glance to her watch; forty-three seconds.

She smiled while she reached the control panel, pressing a series of jellybean buttons as she mentally congratulated herself for getting there as quickly. It wasn’t beating her personal record, but it was close, and that was enough for tonight, she decided as she twisted an orange lollipop. The console screen appeared before her, and she finally silenced the alarm, staring at the blinking red dot that sparkled on one side of the screen.

She sighed before she shut down the control panel, shrugging off the remembrance of the last time she had been in the security room. Slowly, she made her way through the castle’s empty corridors, enjoying the quietness of her home. Somehow, though, she couldn’t appreciate the moment as much as she wanted to; something felt strange, as if someone watching her. Frowning, she immediately stopped when a surprising thought crossed her mind.

“Marceline, if you’re spying on me right now, I swear to Glob, I will…”

The vampire appeared in front of her, floating with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. “You will what, _Princess_?”

The grey girl addressed the monarch’s title mockingly and, refusing to acknowledge the insult, Bonnibel started walking again, Marceline following her only a few steps behind. They journeyed together through the darkened corridors, both too stubborn to break the silence first, their minds constantly returning to their previous fight until finally, the vampire spoke again.

“So, um, you’ve got home okay”, she started with hesitation, awkwardly avoiding looking directly at the pink monarch.

“Yeah”, the Princess answered, stopping when she arrived at her bedroom door. She let her hand linger on the handle, eyes locked onto the floor. “Would you have come?”

The vampire blinked and frowned. “What?”

Bubblegum sighed, daring to raise her head and share a look with Marceline. “If I had used the Key and got transported back to the Labyrinth of Doom”, she explained. “Would you really have come to get me?”

A blush spread on Marceline’s cheeks as she nervously scratched the back of her neck. “Yeah, def, Bonnie.”

The pink monarch smirked as she opened her bedroom door. “Nobody calls me that.”

She walked in and Marceline hesitated only slightly before she followed. “I call you that.”

Bonnibel turned around, twisting her hands as she insisted, “you didn’t before, Marcie.”

The princess had insisted on the nickname and it brought a new shade of red to the vampire’s cheeks. There was a moment of silence before Marceline sighed, floating a bit upper than usual as she crossed her arms in front of her.

“Well I do now, so stop being a brat about it.”

Bubblegum grimaced, pulling out her tongue to argue before she composed a more serious face. “So, what are you doing here? You know we’re technically still at war, right?”

Marceline winced at the remembrance and pointed towards a corner of the room. “Yeah, I just… needed my guitar.”

“Oh”, the pink monarch answered, uncertain of what it meant. There was something the grey girl seemed to be hiding, but she didn’t know what. She crossed her bedroom and reached the instrument. “Planning on a big concert?”

“Not really, no”, Marceline avoided her questioning stare. “I just haven’t played in a long time.”

“You’re such a drama queen; it’s been like, a week”, Bonnibel complained, mostly to make the vampire smile, but it didn’t get the banter she was hoping for. She grabbed the red guitar and returned to her friend’s side, still puzzled over the real reason behind her presence in her castle, this late in the night.

“An entire week without music? That’s Hell Bonnibel, and you know it”, the vampire kidded, and although her heart wasn’t truly in it, the princess smiled. After a few seconds of silence, Marceline took the instrument from the monarch’s hands, their fingers brushing tentatively. Awkward, the vampire cleared her throat. “Alright, I got places to be.”

A strange urge compelled Bubblegum to ask her to stay, as if, even though she had no idea where Marceline was heading, she knew she couldn’t let her go there. However, brain and logic always dominated her gut feelings, and so she shrugged. “Okay then”, she casually replied. “See you around?”

Marceline’s fingers brushed against the chords, a few notes echoing through the darkened bedroom. “I really missed you”, the vampire confessed in a whisper.

“I… uh… me too”, Bonnibel anxiously answered.

Startled, the grey girl opened her mouth to say something, but only a short, nervous laugh emerged. When she composed herself, she smirked. “I was talking to the guitar, doofus”, she replied with a soft voice. “But I guess I can see why you’d miss me; I’m soooo awesome.”

Insulted, Bonnibel crossed her arms angrily. “You’re not. You’re the doofus. A jerk-faced doofus.”

“A jerk-face you missed”, Marceline winked before she played another chord. Not allowing her friend the time to answer, she floated towards the window and opened it, but before she stepped into the night, she sent another look towards the princess.

“See you around, Bonnibel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so terribly sorry for the delay. This story is my new priority and I've got vacation days coming up so, I should get those last two chapters very soon.
> 
> I do have a few ideas for a sequel, but it might be a bit more mature than this story - and by that, I mean, a bit darker. Of course this is still _Adventure Time_ so I won't write gore, but it might get a bit more violent and a bit more angsty. Are you guys still interested if that's the case?


	23. Royalties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Glob, what kind of vampire gang are you anyway?"

 “How dare you?”

The dark voice rose, defiant and livid, yet Abadeer did not blink. Whistling a tune, he tightened the ropes on every limb. Focused on his task, he then moved to the side, checking again the solidity of his work and insuring that his prisoner would not be able to move one inch. A loud slurp coming from high above his head made him grin; truly, this was one of the best punishments he had ever imagined.

 “I will not forget this treachery, Hunson.”

Angered at the choice of words, Abadeer hissed menacingly and rushed to face his enemy. Standing inches apart, he stared at the tied-down Evil Gum.

“Neither will I, old friend.”

His death glare met EG’s, neither wanting to be the first one to break. Finally, Hunson smirked, taking a step back to enjoy his work. He sighed with contempt before transforming into a bigger version of his monstrous self, slowly reaching the height of the giant he had bribed. The enormous creature simply sat on the ground, dutifully licking the popsicle Abadeer had given him so that he would stay still. It had worked, too; the childlike giant hadn’t moved one bit as Hunson had patiently and carefully tied the Evil Gum under his left shoe.

“You can go now”, the ruler of the Nightosphere allowed. The creature blinked a few times before he gulped down the rest of his treat and threw the popsicle stick away. The massive piece of wood destroyed a nearby tower as it reached the ground, but Abadeer had only eyes for the giant. It rose to its feet as quickly as a massive forty-foot tall childlike creature could.

When a bird passed by, as small as an insect compared to the giant, the creature laughed and chased it down, running towards the horizon, not caring if it stepped on rock or on lava. Hunson’s eyes remained on the left shoe, smirk increasing with every footstep. Even minutes later, when the enormous child had become but a small moving dot far away, Abadeer thought he could still hear every “ow!” uttered by the Evil Gum that had once been his friend.

The punishment was unnecessarily cruel, but Hunson felt he had to set an example. No one could lay a finger on Marceline and not expect similar retribution. Besides, now, all he had to do was allow the Evil Gum’s seed of chaos to grow in Ooo, allowing him to find a way to open larger portals leading there.

Then, he will find his daughter and together, they will rule the Nightosphere and all of Ooo.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t know if I can do it”, Marceline regretfully admitted, peeking through the heavy red curtains of the theatre. She looked at the growing crowd nervously until she couldn’t take it anymore; she closed her eyes and gulped.

“Of course you can, you’re badass!”

Ash’s voice, cheerful and relaxed, almost seemed to come from miles away, even though his hand rested on her shoulder. She imagined his smile, all dressed-up in his tuxedo as if tonight was a glamorous event, and not a fight to the death. He promised again that all be fine before he finally left her, crossing over to the stage area where he was to entertain the crowd until the beginning of the challenge.

When Marceline sighed loudly, opening her eyes once again, Tommy had taken Ash’s place by her side.

“I’m sure you got some moves”, he encouraged her, hesitant smile spread on his face.

“I do, I just... I don’t know if I can kill him”, she replied, her ashamed eyes resting on her palms. She was a demon’s daughter, the rightful heir to the Nightosphere, and a vampire on top of that... and still, unable to take a life. With her father’s voice in mind, she reminded herself of how pathetic her existence was.

“Kill him? Woa… no, you definitely can’t”, the boy squealed, moving one step away from her.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, T”, Marceline sighed. She cracked her neck and stretched her arms, trying to gather some courage for the challenge to come.

“Why would you want to kill him?”, Tommy asked in a confused whisper.

On the stage, Ash had started the opening monologue and she winced at his bad jokes before she answered the boy’s question. “Um, hello? Fight to the death?”

“Yeah, but that’s just short for _Fight to the Megadeth_ ”, he answered; kicking away a dust bunny with his right shoe, hand tucked in his pocket.

“What?”

“You both have to rock out a song from the Old World’s band Megadeth, and the best performer wins”, Tommy explained as if it were self-evident. “You thought you had to kill him?!”

“Yes”, she exclaimed before she sighed her frustration – and her relief. “Glob, what kind of vampire gang are you anyway?”

Opening the red curtains again, Marceline noticed for the first time the judges’ table. Enthroned above the crowd, three vampires sat, sipping from Styrofoam cups and busying themselves until the beginning of the trials. One was a fat woman in a green suit, reading a book and rolling her eyes at every one of Ash’s punch lines. The second wore a black heavy metal t-shirt and played a beat with two pencils by frantically hitting the side of the table. The third, a young girl with thick glasses, pinched the top of her nose, seemingly annoyed. The gesture somewhat reminded Marceline of Princess Bubblegum, and she smiled, reading the girl’s lips as she asked the boy beside her, “could you not?”

Finally, Ash announced Don Vito’s entrance, leaving the stage under a thunderstorm of claps and cheers – whether it was to greet their King or in response to the magician’s entertainment, Marceline couldn’t know. From the other side of the theatre, the fat monarch appeared guitar in hand, already stroking the strings. It took a few seconds before she recognized the song – _Symphony of Destruction_ – but the crowd was already cheering him on.

As the King played, he roamed the stage from one side to the other, exciting the crowd at every chance he got. Their voices joined his when he reached the chorus, chanting loudly _“Just like the Pied Piper / Led rats through the streets / We dance like marionettes / To the symphony of... destruction!”_

Marceline shivered, noticing the evil gleam in Don Vito’s eyes every time he sang those words, evidently associating himself with the Pied Piper. Finally, he reached the guitar solo and threw himself to his knees as he hit the highest note. Even though he struggled to return to his feet afterwards, the bold move had enchanted the crowd who screamed even more. The front rows had started to trash into one another and the more they grew wild, the more the knot in Marceline’s stomach tightened.

Mere seconds after the _Symphony_ had ended, the judges raised their voting pads. The woman in the green suit had picked 8, the guy in the black t-shirt, 9, but the last one, the girl who reminded her of Bonnibel, had rated the performance a 6. Overall, it wasn’t the highest score possible, but still, Marceline knew she had quite a challenge ahead. During Don Vito’s show, she had quickly reviewed her small repertory and had planned on playing an easy, catchy song, but with his good results, she realised she would need a miracle to win. She settled on a harder one instead – _Tornado of Souls_.

While Ash announced her performance, Tommy handed her guitar and, with her free hand, she grabbed a stool that she pulled with her on stage. The wild crowd had not entirely calmed down yet, but it became almost silent when she sat on the edge of the bench, trying to picture the times she sang at the Candy Tavern. A voice in her head reminded her of her last show there, when she sucked so much that a man in a blue sweater had literally ran out of the bar. She gulped; hopefully, tonight, she would be better.

Guitar held close to her neck so that she could have a better angle and be more precise, she didn’t really hold the crowd’s attention. Most of them remained silent, stuck in awe or disdain, while others chatted with friends as if they couldn’t care less. She focused on her instrument and barely noticed the cheers that started when she reached the first verse.

The front rows started trashing into one another again as she continued to play, their voices loudly joining hers when she hit the chorus; “ _now I’m safe in the eye of the tornado, blow me away”_. Her confidence grew as the crowd screamed “WHO” with her while she sang one of her favorite parts; “ _WHO’s to say what’s for me to say / WHO’s to say what’s for me to be / WHO’s to say what’s for me to do_ ”.

So focused on the chords, it almost took her by surprise when she reached the impossibly difficult guitar solo. It was the main reason she had picked _Tornado_ , knowing she would either rock out the solo with her killer moves and win, or miss it and lose. She concentrated on the notes, her fingers running almost painfully on the frets as she picked the strings. It sounded pretty good, she thought, but she had no time to look onto the crowd and the judges to know for sure.

When she landed the few last notes, an enormous wave of screaming and clapping reassured her, and so she finished the song with a smile on her face. Seconds later, the judges made their call.

The fat woman, first to show her vote, had picked 8 – exactly the same number as Don Vito’s performance. The heavy metal guy looked utterly bored when he flashed his 6, causing a wave of panic to rush over the grey girl. However, the young girl with the thick glasses raised her pad with a shy smile; she had rated Marceline’s song a 10.

On stage, completely still, the grey girl blinked a few times, not knowing if she had won or not. Her sweaty palms around her guitar’s neck, she waited Ash’s return.

“And, by one point, the victor is… Marceline!”

His voice rushed out of the speakers as he ran on the stage, the crowd cheering loudly when he grabbed her hand and lifted it over her head triumphantly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome your new Queen!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It took five days for Bubblegum to finally assemble the Emergency Ooo Royalty Meeting – and two of those had been wasted convincing the Lumpy Space royal family of the importance of the matter at hand. They believed that since they technically lived in space, if the Nightosphere was to invade Ooo, they would not be affected by the change. In the end, she found no way to reason with them, and appealed to their vanity instead, mentioning how important it was for the _people_ – whoever that was – to see them there; a comforting sight in troubled times.

Now, she stood at the end of the large table, watching her fellow royal counterparts coming in one after the other while Peppermint Butler announced every arrival carefully and solemnly. Bubblegum knew she should be rehearsing the speech she was about to make, or at least pondering on the terms of her upcoming surrender to King Don Vito, but she couldn’t focus. Listening to her butler’s voice, she contemplated his short reign over her kingdom, how it had almost cost them everything. Not for the first time, she wondered how one of her creations – something so cute and so little –could turn out to be so dangerous. That train of thought only led her back to the Evil Gum, and she wished that she would be able to hold this meeting without having to mention him.

He was, after all, her biggest mistake yet – far worse than Lemongrab.

“Wildberry Princess, of the Wildberry Kingdom.”

Bubblegum faked a smile towards her fellow monarch to welcome her, but as she did, she felt a shift in the air surrounding her. Suddenly, it seemed as if there was something floating above her, even though there was nothing. She blinked a few times, but before she could blame her nervousness, a familiar voice whispered in her ear; “can I snack on her, or is that not allowed?”

Bonnibel looked around once again, but remained unable to see the vampire.

“Cut it out, Marceline”, she objected with a low voice, hoping her royal counterparts wouldn’t hear her.

“What? Do you prefer I snack on you instead?”, Marceline laughed, but before an embarrassed Bonnibel could answer, she made herself visible again. The assembled royals cried out, a gasp of fear and surprise welcoming her arrival. “What’s wrong? Never saw a vampire before?”

Pleased with her joke, the grey girl pulled herself a chair, sitting comfortably with her boots resting on the table. Most monarchs tried to discreetly pull away, none of them being brave enough to be the first to run towards the door. Now standing beside her, Princess Bubblegum didn’t appear to be phased.

“You can’t be here, Marceline”, Bonnibel warned with the dignified voice of a monarch. “You have to leave.”

“Oh really?”, the grey girl asked as she stretched her arms and placed them under her head. “Make me.”

Marceline winked, her smirk only growing as the pink princess’ cheeks reddened. Upset as she was, Bonnibel didn’t notice that Peppermint Butler had reached her side, trying to get her attention. Finally, he cleared his throat and she caught onto his presence.

“It appears every guest has arrived, Princess”, he stated with a low voice, eyes averting to the frightened monarchs who had all but turned into statues.

“Hey, little dude”, Marceline snapped her fingers, “you presented everybody else; why not _me_?”

The butler stared at her defiantly. “ _You_ didn’t enter through the main door as you should have, _your Majesty_ ”, he mocked. After a staring contest of a few seconds, he finally opened his mouth again. “Marceline Abadeer, Heir to the realm of the Nightosphere and Queen of the Vampires”

The assembled monarchs gasped, shifting in their seats as they slowly realised she wasn’t here to turn them into a royal buffet.

“I prefer ‘Marceline, the Vampire Queen’... it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Bubblegum hid her surprise, moving her eyes from Peppermint to the grey girl. “You’re Queen now?”

“Yeah, and you’re a princess, so that makes me your boss, right?”, Marceline joked.

“No, not really”, Bonnibel replied with a smile, sitting down once again and leaning over the table. “What happened to Don Vito?”

“Oh, retirement suits him well, I assure you”, the Queen cryptically answered, allowing a few seconds of silence before she continued. “So, shall we do this thing?”

“What thing?”, Bubblegum asked, as if she had suddenly forgotten why they were there.

“That whole peace parley thing, you know? Isn’t that the reason we’re all here, Bonnie?”

Bubblegum had called the emergency meeting to discuss the threat the Nightosphere presented to their realm and announce her complete surrender to King Don Vito, and surely Marceline knew. However, this new situation gave her the opportunity to save face and Ooo; she wasn’t about to pass up on it. Gathering her wits, she cleared her throat and put on her glasses. “Yes, of course. Do you wish to begin? What are your terms?”

“Uhh... let’s be cool?”

Staring at her from over her glasses, Bonnibel sighed. “Oh boy”, she started with a low voice.

“What?”, Marceline crossed her arms.

“Nothing”, the princess replied, faking a smile towards the other monarchs before she added in a whisper, “just follow my lead, okay?”

The vampire frowned, but agreed nonetheless.

“So, I imagine what you are cleverly referring to, by saying “let’s be cool”, is the complete destruction of all sun-in-a-guns, including all the plans that led to the fabrication of this weapon?”

“Uh, yeah”, the vampire agreed, taking her feet off the table. “You def’ read my mind, Princess.”

“Hm-hm, hm-hm”, Bubblegum pretended to be thinking about it. “You drive a hard bargain, I mean, how are we to defend ourselves?”

Marceline opened her mouth but Bonnibel cut her off with another whisper; “don’t answer that”. The pink princess then stood up, formally addressing the royal crowd assembled before her.

“But it is a sacrifice the Candy Kingdom is prepared to make, for the return of peace and the continued survival of Ooo. To keep all our kingdoms safe from the intruders from the Nightosphere, the Candy Kingdom will agree to rid itself of its only defense against vampires... under one condition.”

There was a short moment of silence until Marceline felt Bubblegum kicking her tibia under the table.

“Ow, what?!”, she exclaimed.

“I’m glad you asked your Majesty”, Bubblegum continued with a fake smile. “Our only condition is that vampires be forever forbidden to enter the Candy Kingdom.”

A thick tension built across the room while the Queen remained mute. “Yeah, okay, whatever”, Marceline finally agreed, a knot in the back of her throat and suddenly feeling very eager to leave.

“Then it is settled”, Bubblegum confirmed, hitting the table with the ceremonial hammer. “Unless anybody has something else they wish to discuss, this meeting is adjourned.”

The frightened royals dared not add a word and rushed out of the door as soon as Peppermint Butler opened it. Although very tempted to join them, the vampire remained behind, awkwardly floating beside the pink monarch.

“Well, I guess this is the best time to give you this”, Marceline told Bubblegum before she rushed out of the window and returned, green backpack in hand.

“My backpack? You found it?”, Bonnibel welcomed the gift with an enormous grin, hugging the old thing as if a life buoy.

“Yeah well, Don Vito had it so I just, took it back, you know”, an embarrassed Marceline replied, scratching the back of her neck nervously.

“You are the awesomest person ever”, the Princess added, letting go of the bag and pulling Marceline into a hug. “Thank you so, so much.”

“It’s nothing”, the grey girl replied into the warm embrace.

After they both let go, the two girls stood still, almost paralyzed as they avoided looking at each other, the green backpack spread between them.

“So um, I guess that’s it”, Marceline stated, awkward.

“Yeah, well, it would be nice if you came to visit sometime... I’d like the company”, Bubblegum admitted, eyes on her feet even as her cheeks reddened once again.

“You banished all vampires from the Candy kingdom like, five seconds ago”, the grey girl argued.

“Oh, come on”, Bonnibel objected with a smile. “As if you ever followed the rules", she winked before she grabbed her backpack, walking towards the exit.

“See you around, Marcie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be one last chapter, an epilogue of sorts (and yes, it will include a kiss, because this is a Bubbline fic and it has been the slowest burn ever and my shipper heart cannot take it anymore).
> 
> Thanks for reviewing; I am re-writing some of the past chapters so it's nice to know what works and what doesn't.


	24. Bad Little Girl

Rain had cut her day short and she truly wasn’t complaining. For almost a week now, Princess Bubblegum had spent all her free time gluing back together her citizens. Though at first, it helped with the guilt – the war had been, after all, to get her back –, it had rapidly turned into a tedious task that she couldn’t wait to get over with.

In her bedroom, sitting by her desk, she sorted through the list once again. Crunchy had all his chocolate chips back and Buck Pudding, a whole new arm; she had stuffed Petey’s head with vanilla ice cream and carefully applied sprinkles to Donut Guy’s icing. It had taken her all day, and still, she wasn’t done yet; her whole kingdom had been affected, and there were parts of the city that were still in ruins.

“Sometimes royal duties can be sooo lame”, she complained, sighing loudly at her desk.

Peppermint Butler chose this moment to appear, waltzing into the room with a tray of cream puffs.

“Here, Princess”, he offered with a smile. “The Candy people baked those for you, to thank you for piecing them back together.”

His face hidden from her by the tray, she winced. The sight of the pastries made her nauseous as she thanked him as politely as she could manage. When he asked if she wanted one, she faked a smile; “I’d love to, but… maybe later.”

She was about to ask her butler to bring her a cup of hot cocoa when the window of her bedroom suddenly opened. Wind stormed in, repeatedly hitting the window pane against the wall. “What the what”, Bubblegum wondered, standing up to investigate the phenomenon. She hadn’t walked more than two steps before an invisible force rushed by her, spinning her like a top.

As if getting out of a haze, Peppermint Butler rushed towards the window, only to have the tray of pastries disappear into thin air. Blinking repeatedly, his stare went from his empty hands to the tousled pink monarch. He opened his mouth to speak, but before any words came out, a loud thump came from over their heads.

“Something’s on the roof”, the Princess realised.

Pushing the curtains aside, she leaned on the window sill, trying to see who or what had taken refuge on her tower’s top. It was just her luck that the rain blinded her; she sighed before she shifted her weight, extending her arms to find the extent of the ladder leading to the roof. Finally, her fingers found the lowest bar and she smiled triumphantly.

 “I’m not going out there”, Peppermint Butler complained as he watched his princess preparing to climb up. “It’s wet!”

Bubblegum looked up once again before she returned her eyes to Peps. “Alright; don’t wait up.”

Eager for some adventure – or, really, anything that did not imply reattaching detached limbs –, she pulled herself up, carefully climbing the ladder despite the terrible weather conditions. Heart beating fast, Bonnibel reached the top of her tower, her newfound energy turning into sheer joy when she recognized the intruder.

“Of course, it had to be you”, she grinned.

“Oh, _hello_ your Majesty”, Marceline welcomed her with a curtsy and wink. “Beautiful sundown, isn’t it?”

The princess looked up to the dark clouds over their heads, forming a thick lid above the land for as far as she could see. “Why, yes, it’s gorgeous.”

Noticing the tray of creampuffs, carelessly thrown aside, she crossed her arms. “Would be even better without those pesky thieves running around.”

Floating from one end of the rooftop to another, Marceline smirked. “I don’t see any thieves here Bonnie”, she replied, frowning when she noticed something moving behind the pink girl.

“Vampires aren’t allowed in the Candy kingdom anymore”, Peppermint Butler declared, pulling his tiny round body up the ladder. He imitated Bubblegum’s posture before he angrily added, “you’ve got to go!”

Marceline laughed. “What? Is he kidding?”

The vampire reached down, grabbing a few creampuffs before she threw one at the butler. The projectile hit its target with a wet sound, red filling splashing on Peppermint’s face, creating an unflattering mask.

“Princess, you should go back inside”, he ordered, wiping the raspberry jam off his face. He pulled up his sleeves, then closed his tiny fingers into fists and stared at the grey teenager with threatening eyes.

Fighting against her burgeoning laughter, Bubblegum laid one hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Peps”, she spoke calmly. “I’ve got this.”

Understanding the unspoken order, Peppermint stood down. He sent one last glare towards the vampire before he climbed down the ladder, his little feet hitting every bar with a distinct _ping_. Marceline waited a few seconds after the last one before she relaxed, floating cross-legged. “What a dweeb!”

The rain seemed to calm as well, as if encouraging Bonnibel to stay out a little while longer. She awkwardly moved a lock of hair falling in front of her eyes as she jokingly corrected Marceline’s insult; “a pepperdweeb.”

The vampire laughed at her friend’s invention. “Yeah, totes”, she agreed before she sank her teeth into a creampuff. They stood in silence for a few seconds, until the grey girl threw the pastry away, having sucked the red out of its jam. “Come on, let’s go somewhere.”

She held her hand open, waiting for the monarch to reach up to her. “Hm, I... I’ve got to...” Bonnibel pictured the paperwork she had only started to fill, the endless lists of things to do and citizens to fix and problems to solve. Her kingdom, her crown, her responsibilities. All waiting for her down in her bedroom and neatly stacked on her desk.

The rain had drenched her clothes completely, making her heavier than usual, a little cold but not uncomfortable. She pondered pros and cons under the grey sky, barely noticing the water still falling down on her.

“The Duke of Nuts is throwing a party in the woods”, Marceline offered, extending her hand slightly further. “It’s gonna be freaky nasty...”

Princess Bubblegum smiled at the suggestion, biting on her lower lip. Sensing the impossible battle raging inside her friend, the vampire sighed. “Just say yes, Bonnibel.”

Hearing her name brought a hazy glow to her mind and suddenly, her desk and its lists seemed miles away. The pink monarch nodded, reaching around the vampire to hold onto her neck. Body pressed against Marceline’s back, she closed her eyes, waiting for the usual rush of elevation. It came almost immediately, followed by the familiar tightening of the vampire’s hands on the back of her thighs, holding her securely in place.

The two girls flew across the sky under the dark clouds, ignoring the rain as they headed towards the woods. Instead of rushing over there like she normally would, Marceline soared gracefully, minding her passenger’s lack of experience with high altitude acrobatics. They traveled in silence, listening to the storm slowly appeasing until fading notes reached their ears. Distant laughter and conversations gradually joined the music as they reached the Duchy of Nuts.

Under the trees, the warmth and light of a large fire welcomed them. Marceline landed near, grabbing Bubblegum’s hand as soon as her feet hit the floor. She pulled her over to the bonfire, suggesting that they dry off a bit before they joined the crowd.

From her place near the fire, Bonnibel scoped the party-goers, searching for familiar faces. She noticed Lady and waved at her, but the rainicorn was too busy chatting with her friends. The princess also recognized Lumpy Space Princess and the Duke, but not the other guests. Of course, over the years, she had met many of those strangers at different occasions, although she had never gotten to really know any of them. She was about to complain about her usual disinterest in meeting more citizens of Ooo when one of them pointed towards her, an excited look painted on his face.

“She’s here, she’s here!”

Others turned around and joined in, making it impossible to ignore them. The crowd had slightly moved closer to the two girls when a voice screamed above the noise.

 “Marceline’s going to play a song you guys!”

The Duke of Nuts’ happy shout-out brought claps and cheers from his guests. Smiling, Marceline took her leave of Bonnibel with a wink. She floated towards the makeshift stage that had been erected under an oak tree, where she found a band’s instruments lying around. She reached for a black electric guitar, absently picking the chords while she adjusted the strap over her shoulder. Then, she took a deep breath to gather her courage, and started singing one of her compositions.

_Good little girl_   
_Always picking a fight with me_   
_You know that I’m bad_   
_But you’re spending the night with me_   
_What do you want from my world_   
_You’re a good little girl_

Hidden amongst the audience, Bubblegum’s cheeks reddened as the song went on. Even though all eyes were on the singer, the princess felt as if everyone was staring at her directly, mocking her and her unintended crush on her friend. It wasn’t until the vampire reached “you’ve got a thing for me girl, it’s apparent” that she burst out, unable to withstand it anymore. She rushed towards the woods, ignoring the complaints of the other guests as she dashed through the crowd. Followed the first trail she could find, Bonnibel paced angrily as if she knew where she was going, but mostly just eager to distance herself from the party.

As she walked, she cursed a thousand times the vampire’s cheekiness and the nerve of her song. Even though she was alone, she felt like Marceline was all around her, lurking, taunting her. Somehow, it made her as hopeful as she was frustrated at the thought of being stalked by the grey girl.

It wasn’t until she reached a crossroad that she heard it. It was a soft whisper, filled with hesitation. “Bonnie?”

Recognizing the voice, the princess stopped, but stubbornly refused to turn around. She felt the anger dissipating rapidly as she confessed, “you’re not so bad, you know.”

There was a little laugh, and then Marceline appeared in front of her.

“Not so bad? I’m the daughter of a demon, and the Vampire Queen”, she reminded the pink monarch, her smile turning into a frown. “It’s not something I have to try at. You, on the other hand...”

She floated closer to Bubblegum, grabbing her hand to hold inside hers, although the pink girl pulled it out of her grasp almost instantly.

“Hey, I’m not trying to be bad”, she argued, crossing her arms in front of her, evidently upset. “I’m hanging out with you because you’re my friend.”

“I’m your friend”, the vampire repeated, “like your little butler is your friend?”

Frowning and confused, Bubblegum protested. “No, you and I we’re... different.”

Marceline stepped closer, insisting; “different, how?”

“Just different”, Bonnibel opposed with a sigh. She started walking once again, retracing her steps to return towards the party in hopes that Lady was still there. “Stop following me.”

The vampire laughed, floating behind her anyway. Ahead, she could see a strange glow between the trees. Maybe it was the bonfire, or some fireflies, she thought, until the trail twisted. Flying towards them, a rainicorn appeared, and Bonnibel welcomed her in a language unknown to Marceline. There, they exchanged a few phrases, and it didn’t take translation to understand the look of disapproval and frustration that spread on the creature’s traits.

“Now, will you stop following me”, Bubblegum asked, crossing her arms with a smug look on her face. The rainicorn floated forward, placing itself between the two girls.

Marceline shook her head.

“Why?”

The vampire smirked. “Because you’re being ridiculous, Bonnie”, she complained, stepping closer only to have Lady raising her fists threateningly. “Oh, it’s going to be like this?”

Marceline morphed into a large bat, sinking her feet into the ground and flipping her wings to intimidate the rainicorn. The creature refused to back down, rising up to meet her opponent eye to eye.

“Stop it”, Bubblegum asked them both, but they ignored her as they stared each other down.

It happened so fast and the woods were too dark for Bonnibel to see who started the fight. With the sounds of the party barely reaching them, the princess could almost hear every quick breath they took, every blow they managed to land as they fought. Every time Marceline’s skin came into contact with the rainicorn’s, she hissed in pain, burnt by the small light Lady continuously emitted.

The vampire feigned leaving for a few seconds before she tried to rush past her adversary again, only to be shoved aside by one strong blow of Lady’s tail. Angry, the bat pulled herself up from the ground and returned to the fight with a newfound energy. They exchanged a few more punches before the vampire queen threw in a few kicks as well, only to be pushed away again, more forcefully this time.

Her body, thrown across the air as a ragged doll, found the end of its trajectory hitting a tree trunk hard. There, she quickly morphed back into her human form, her face twisted in pain. Clutching at her chest, where blood seeped through the fabric of her clothes, Marceline gasped. When, a second later, the branch that had impaled her broke in a loud crack, she fell to the ground, helpless.

Panicked, Bubblegum screamed her name as she rushed to her side, Lady behind her. Again, they shared a few words that the vampire couldn’t understand and the rainicorn rushed out into the night’s sky. Staying behind, the princess kneeled down, bringing one hand to Marceline’s cheek and another to her stomach, just below the wound.

“This is really bad”, the vampire cried out in pain. “Like, really really bad.”

“Marceline”, Bonnibel said her name with so much ache and fear, it seemed as if she was the one that had been hurt. “Come on, you’ve got to be okay...”

“I think this is Bonnie”, Marceline spoke with difficulty, gasping for air after every few words. “So why don’t you just admit it? …You’re in love with me”

“I-I get that you flirt with me all the time, and it’s funny or whatever, but you’re doing that now?” the princess asked angrily, despite the tears building up in her eyes. “You think I’ve got some little crush on you? Well, for however long we have left –”

“Faking it”, Marceline interrupted, raising her hands above her head as if she was surrendering. “I’m faking it!”

“What?” Bonnibel stumbled backwards, swallowing hardly.

The vampire pushed herself up from the ground. “My shirt is like, filled with creampuffs”, she sheepishly confessed, taking out the pastries from under her clothes with a grin. She waited a few seconds for her friend to react, and when the pink girl didn’t, she tried a shy “Bonnie?”

“You’re stupid”, Bonnibel replied, brushing away her tears once again before hitting Marceline’s shoulder with her fist, as strongly as she could manage.

“Ow!”

“And mean”, the princess hit her again, “and dumb”, and again.

“Dumb and stupid kinda sounds like synonyms”, Marceline protested between the punches.

Stopping her assault, Bonnibel sulked. “Shut up.”

The vampire smiled. “It’s true, I read it somewhere.”

“Shut up”, the princess repeated, reaching for Marceline’s hand and holding it dearly. “Promise me, no more fake dying.”

Beside her, the vampire smiled, her thumb caressing the back of Bonnibel’s hand like an unspoken apology. “No more fake dying; I promise.”

“Thank you”, she answered in a soft voice, leaning in. A small breeze came through the trees, making the leaves dance as they kissed, shy lips coming together. Marceline felt the cold tip of Bonnie’s nose grazing against her cheek and she smiled. Bonnie moved away slightly to whisper, “it’s not even funny.”

“It was a little funny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is over, people!
> 
> Interesting fact: I've actually written this entire fic just so that I could share that my head!canon is that _Bad Little Boy_ was actually Marceline recounting her first date with Bonnibel. Took us forever to get there, right? I'm such a nerd sometimes.
> 
> If you liked _Displaced_ , kudos it (?) and if you like what I do, then follow me. We shall continue this story together, you and I, with a darker sequel in the next few months (I want to have a lot written down before I post the first chapter, so that I always have a buffer - a thing I should have done with this story, had I been a wise person).


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